


A Study of the Fifth Blight

by ravensurana



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon Rewrite, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-14 12:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 65,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20600762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravensurana/pseuds/ravensurana
Summary: All Raven Surana ever wanted was to gain the rank of Enchanter in the Circle of Magi and move on from the turmoil of her childhood. But on the day of her Harrowing, she was given an impossible task: to save the world or die in the attempt, and maybe--just maybe--to find a family along the way.





	1. Harrowed

**Author's Note:**

> I've been putting off posting this, as it's very much a work in progress and I'm composed of 98% anxiety, but I've had people express an interest in reading it, so I'm taking a deep breath and sending it out. It started as an exercise to try and get into my canon Warden's head better so I could write an original story, but I was about eighteen chapters into THAT story when I realized that I needed to know precisely where Raven had been before I could accurately depict where she was going next, and... things kind of spiralled out of control from there.

They came for her in the middle of the night.

Raven Surana woke before they reached her bed, her excellent hearing and well-trained sense of paranoia jolting her from sleep with the realization that something was different about tonight. After thirteen years in this dormitory, she was used to its usual complement of nighttime sounds: soft-soled apprentices slipping out to the washroom or for assignations, the shifting of bedcovers and creaking of wooden slats, the voices of her fellows sighing or murmuring or crying out in their sleep.

Tonight, though, there was the whisper of long robes against the stone floor, the muted clunk of heavily-armed Templars--more than one, certainly. Her eyes opened to the near-total blackness, her own heartbeat loud in her ears as the footsteps moved closer. She'd heard these sounds before, dozens of times over the years, and there were only three ways they ever resolved themselves.

By next morning, the dormitory would be one apprentice short. The question was whether they would reappear in the dining hall that afternoon, wearing the robes of a newly-minted mage and an expression somewhere between terror and unutterable relief; whether they were next met in the stockroom, speaking in the eerily calm voice of one of the Tranquil...

Or whether they would simply vanish, never to be seen or heard from again.

And Raven realized, as the footsteps stopped before her own bunk, that this time it was her turn to discover what the Harrowing entailed.

She knew the robed figure was First Enchanter Irving before he spoke; she'd long since grown used to her mentor's slow, measured tread. "Up, child," he said softly, his voice as pleasant and gravelly as ever, although Raven thought she heard apprehension in his tone.

She sat obediently up in her bed, grateful that the girl who slept above her wasn't easily woken. The dim light--provided by the dweomer-chalk lamps gracing each corner of the dormitory--illuminated the figures of three Templars behind Irving. Two wore the full-face helms that helped the Templars seem interchangeable, almost unhuman; the third was Knight-Commander Greagoir, the leader of the Templars of Kinloch Hold. Raven's heart quailed at his stern visage--frown lines carved deep into his weather-darkened face, as though he had never learned to smile--but years of practice kept her from showing any outward reaction. She reached instead for her robes, pausing for a moment before Irving's nod prompted her to pull the soft fabric from the shelf where it lay folded at the head of her bed.

Raven swung her legs off the bunk and stood, bare feet firm on the cold stone floor, and stripped out of her nightdress. It took only moments to clothe herself in the shapeless yellow apprentice robe, and she reached for her staff, hooked into the rack set into the bunk's frame. This time Irving shook his head. "You won't need that," he rasped; Raven's fingers twitched in surprise, but her hand dropped to her side at once and she turned to follow the procession from the room, her mind whirling with the possibilities.

_It can't be some sort of... final test, can it, not without my staff? Unless they intend to issue me one for the duration of the test, for standardization, perhaps? Or... are they testing me on the use of magic without a focus? That hardly seems fair, I've only been working on that for a few months now, but Irving likely thought I was ready for this regardless. We're not leaving the tower, are we? Oh, I would _love_ to see the stars for myself, but going outside would be a dangerous temptation for those of us who would like to flee the tower--unless that's what the Templars are for? No, we're heading away from the doors...._

Lost in thought, she followed Irving and the Templars through corridors as familiar to Raven as her own name--although she had never before heard them so empty of life--through the library and the stockroom and then past the mages' quarters to the dining hall. The practice rooms fell away as they ascended, higher and higher, until they reached floors Raven had never yet seen in her thirteen years in Kinloch Hold. Windows lined the walls above the stairs, low enough Raven could almost look out at the lake below--so unlike the windows on the lower levels, all too high and thin for an apprentice to escape through. The tower was narrower here, and Raven thought they must reach the top soon. Even held together by magic, no building could stand much higher than this, could it?

It shook her, a little, to realize she wasn't quite sure how many floors her own home held. Surely she'd read the information somewhere over the years, but at this late hour--shadows stretching long across the floor from the chalk lamps lining the walls, the chill air silent save for the steps of the men leading her--she couldn't retrieve it. She was acutely aware that she'd stayed up past curfew reading again.

Raven's breath caught in her throat as the two helmed Templars broke off to stand on either side of a door at the top of one final flight of stairs, and Irving and Greagoir led her through into the room beyond.

She flinched from the sudden brightness. It seemed for a moment as though the sun had already risen, streaming through windows in the high domed ceiling to illuminate this room at the top of the Tower, but a watery-eyed glance upward told her otherwise; the lamps in this room had simply not been dimmed for the night. Blinking rapidly, she regained her vision, and almost wished she hadn't.

At least a dozen Templars stood, equally spaced, in a circle about the edges of the room, most of them as anonymous as those waiting outside. Some, however, had eschewed helms for whatever reason: in addition to Greagoir himself, there was a pale, heavily-muscled man with dark brown hair and a deep scar across one cheek; a man whose bronzed skin tone bespoke a heritage from the north; and...

Raven's breath caught for a moment, and she looked hurriedly away from a pink-cheeked figure with golden curls, worry lines clear on his face and bright blue eyes focused on her.

_Of _course_ they have brought Cullen here._

Over the past few months, Cullen had occasionally taken the time to speak with her in a friendly manner--unbefitting of a Templar, who were supposed to remain apart and aloof from their charges. A small part of Raven had begun looking forward to their conversations, even as most of her instincts screamed for her to never trust a Templar again. She supposed it had been only a matter of time before someone thought it necessary to interfere.

Raven only hoped that their relationship, such as it wasn't, would not mar her Harrowing.

Cullen's presence, however, receded from Raven's mind as Greagoir began to speak, his voice accompanied by an odd rushing sound in Raven's ears; she couldn't figure out whether it was a result of magic, or just her own apprehension. "Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him," Greagoir intoned, reciting the line from the Chant of Light that had determined Raven's fate at the tender age of three.

She instinctively stood straighter, squaring her shoulders and hiding her shaking hands behind her back as the Knight-Commander's stern gaze met her own. "Thus spoke the prophet Andraste as she cast down the Tevinter Imperium, ruled by mages who had brought the world to the edge of ruin," he continued, his voice resonating through the room with a sense of ritual behind the words. "Your magic is a gift, but it is also a curse, for demons of the Fade are drawn to you and seek to use you as a gateway into this world."

Irving stepped up beside his Templar counterpart, gazing down at Raven--as he always did--with compassion on his weathered face; his presence helped her to feel better almost despite herself. He'd helped her a great deal over the past several years, personally overseeing her training as she moved from the basic group classes to individual study. "This is why the Harrowing exists," he said. "The ritual sends you into the Fade, and there you will face a demon, armed only with your will."

_Oh._

This explained why it was forbidden to speak of the Harrowing. The potential for catastrophe was far too high: a single student attempting to 'study' for the Harrowing by seeking out a demon on their own, in dreams, might result in the Templars' destruction of the entire tower to contain the resulting abomination. She had read about the Right of Annulment once, and her nightmares for the next week were of Templars breaking down the door to her dormitory as the students slept, slaughtering all those within before they could defend themselves.

Raven's face went blank as she worked through the implications. If the Harrowing involved facing a demon, then she could see why it was the ritual that separated apprentices from full mages; if a mage was to work magic without constant oversight, they had to be trusted to do so without succumbing to demonic influences, and the only way to truly know whether someone could successfully resist a demon's temptations was to force them into such a situation. Hence the need for the Templars--if the mage was unsuccessful, the abomination must be destroyed before it could escape. Behind her back, Raven's hands clenched tightly around each other as she realized that there was a very real possibility that she could die within the hour; the rest of her, however, displayed no apprehension, a well-honed response to discomfort which she had perfected over the years.

The nature of the Harrowing also explained the third outcome, that of the Tranquil: if a mage was judged obviously unfit to resist demonic possession, their ability to enter the Fade was severed. An instant's consideration, though, closed this off as a possible path for Raven. There was no way she would willingly submit to the removal of her emotions, to becoming as docile and suggestible as a child. For someone such as her, that would be a fate far worse than death.

She nodded fractionally, her mind made up. She would attempt the Harrowing; Irving obviously trusted her to succeed, despite her youth, and she believed in him as she did no one else.

Raven would prove to him that his attention, his trust, had not been misplaced.

"I am ready," she said aloud, her voice deep and clear and strong, and the men about her shifted to attention.

"Know this, apprentice," Greagoir cautioned, a surprising hint of worry in his tone--did he actually care about what happened to her, or was he simply worried of what a mage with Raven's raw power could do with the backing of a demon? "If you fail, we Templars will perform our duty. You will die."

Raven's right hand tightened painfully around the left as she nodded once, sharp and firm, her face impassive as always. Irving gave her an approving smile and stepped forward, gesturing to a stone basin set on a low pillar in the center of the room; its contents glowed the eerie blue of liquid lyrium, casting shifting, watery light across Irving's robes--and Raven's, as she followed his lead. "The Harrowing is a secret out of necessity, child," he said quietly, warmly; had he noticed Raven's apprehension, despite her attempts to conceal it? "Every mage must go through this trial, but as we succeeded, so shall you."

Raven nodded. "I understand." No tremor marked her voice.

"Keep your wits about you, and remember, the Fade is the realm of dreams. The spirits may rule it, but your own will is real."

_My will is real._ Raven knew this, had known it since she was very young and had discovered that while others simply drifted passively through their dreams, she could control what she saw and did. It was one of her only memories before the Templars had come for her. Now, however, she would need to push the limits of this ability if she were to survive.

"The apprentice must go through this test alone, First Enchanter," Greagoir warned. Irving reluctantly stepped back--worried, perhaps, that he had pushed his pupil to this test before she was ready? Raven tried to project reassurance, but wasn't sure she managed anything beyond 'blank'. No matter. He would see, when she succeeded, that he had been in the right.

"You _are_ ready," Greagoir said, and with a deep breath, Raven stepped forward to the bowl of lyrium.

Up close, its glow was softened by a shimmering haze on the surface; far from the relatively-inert liquid she had used in classes, this lyrium had obviously been magically prepared for a specific purpose. Almost without her control, Raven's hands loosened their grip, reacting to the subtle song of the lyrium; her right hand lifted toward the basin, a glow building beneath her skin, and suddenly her body lit as though she was aflame.

Raven's eyes widened, she clamped her lips shut to still a scream, and the room was lost in a blinding flash of white.

###### 

When her vision cleared, she was in the Fade.

She stood still for a moment, marvelling at how _real_ it felt. Her memories of her dreams were always hazy, as though the Fade itself was made of mist--intangible and temporary, oddly patchwork lands pressed together like squares on a quilt. Now, however, the earth beneath her feet was as solid as the Tower floor; while the Fade usually stretched to the horizon, she stood on an island scarcely larger than the Harrowing room. A faint path led down to her left, through patches of grass, and vanished below the edge of the clearing where Raven stood.

The colors, at least, were familiar: greys and greens, for the most part, all cast in the light of the odd greenish sky above. Even her own robes looked washed-out, the bright embroidery on the sleeves and neckline dimmed; a minor effort of will failed to change them, and she frowned. She was usually better able to manipulate the matter of the Fade--was having her spirit deliberately sent here somehow different from dreaming?

Worried, she attempted the few spells she could use without the focus of a staff--a healing spell and one of frost, as well as a simple bolt of magical energy. All three worked, better even than they had the few times she'd used them in dreams. _Perhaps the fact that I am awake means that my mind is subconsciously applying the rules from the real world to the Fade,_ she reasoned. _Or is this a space that has been specifically prepared for the Harrowing? The rules could be different than those in other spirits' demesnes._

Raven looked about the place where she'd awoken. Distant islands floated at random in the abyss, looming like storm clouds seen through a classroom window. Her eyes caught on one island in particular, larger than the others, twisted towers jutting above its dark walls--the Black City, always visible no matter where one went in the Fade. Even for Raven, who wasn't content with the Chantry's stories of the city being 'the home of the Maker, corrupted by sin', its omnipresence was unnerving.

Shaking the City from her mind, Raven stepped up to a ruined tower at one edge of her island. Gathering her will, she tried to walk through its stones, then to push them aside into a doorway; neither effort worked, nor could she force an odd statue of a man three times her size--with horns curling from his skull and long vines for arms--to move, although the odd, spidery trees that towered above her twitched as though caught in a nonexistent draft. _My will may be real,_ she thought wryly, _but everything else here seems to be, too._

A soft buzzing sound from the path, loud in the stillness that until now had contained only Raven's breathing and soft footsteps, caught her attention, and she recalled her purpose--she was here to fight a demon, not to test hypotheses about the rules of reality. The buzz came again; she picked her way quietly through the calf-deep grass toward it, and her magical senses caught a soft sensation that felt like tiny bells chiming against her skin. _Wisp._

The tiny, mindless spirits were annoying, but rarely dangerous; here, though, she had to be ready for anything to attack. Sure enough, as the next step brought her into view of the creature, sparks leapt through her hair like she'd walked across the chapel carpet in the dead of winter, annoying but not quite painful. A gesture froze the glowing mote, and with a gentle _pop_ it faded from sight, leaving only a faint cloud of mist that Raven passed through as she continued walking. Anything but the path before her was blocked from view by oddly twisted roots, plants like cattails taller than Raven herself, and crumbled pillars. 

_If this place has been prepared for me, continuing down the path should bring me to what I seek._

More wisps littered the path ahead--drawn here by the promise of a mage, perhaps, without the knowledge that they would in no way be able to possess one? Even a child could defeat a wisp, were the spirit to attempt anything. The real challenges would begin once Raven came across spirits that had managed to take form, to embody elements of the mortal psyche--spirits of rage, and hunger, and sloth. Worse yet were those of desire and pride; from all she'd read of them, Raven knew that few mages were able to escape their clutches unharmed.

She wondered what manner of spirit had answered the call of her Harrowing.

Raven nearly passed the mouse by; the tiny creature crouched, silent, in the sparse grass, nearly the same color as the earth beneath her feet. Only as she drew level with it did it begin to speak, and Raven stopped cold.

"Someone else thrown to the wolves," it said, its oddly-echoing voice a low tenor tinged with despair. "As fresh and unprepared as ever."

A note of anger joined the despair as it continued. "It isn't right that they do this, the Templars. Not to you, me, _anyone_."

Raven edged slightly away, folding her arms as she stared down at it. "Who are you?" she asked, only half-expecting an answer. If this was a spirit, it didn't seem to be a very powerful one; she could scarcely sense it, a soft scratching sound in her mind. It seemed to know, however, why she was there, which made her wary.

It sighed, a strange sound for a mouse. "It's always the same. But it's not your fault. You're in the same boat I was, aren't you?"

Its body began to glow, then to shift, and moments later a young man stood before Raven, dressed as she was in the robes of an apprentice. He was perhaps a handful of years older than Raven, with short blond hair, and blue-green eyes almost more elvhen than human; a faintly lost expression seemed etched permanently across his features, and his mouth quirked up at one corner as he took in Raven's serious expression. "Allow me to welcome you to the Fade," he said, his voice no longer quite so odd. "You can call me... well, Mouse."

Raven's brow furrowed slightly as she took in his words. "You went through the Harrowing, then?" she asked.

Mouse looked distant, as though searching through his memories; one hand came up to rub at his temple. "It's... fuzzy, that time before," he said at last. "They wake you up in the middle of the night and drag you to the Harrowing chamber and then..."

He made an inarticulate, angry sound. "The Templars kill you if you take too long, you see. They figure you failed, and they don't want something getting out--that's what they did to me, I think. I have no body to reclaim. And you don't have much time before you end up the same."

Raven tamped down the rush of worry this statement brought forth; Irving believed in her abilities and would hold off the Templars for quite a while. She knew senior mages without her talents who had nevertheless made it through their Harrowings. Still, she had better get moving--no point in tempting fate. Looking ahead for any indication of how large the island was--a fruitless effort, given how tall the vegetation around her grew--she asked, "How long do I have, exactly?"

She began to walk again, gesturing for Mouse to follow her; he fell into step beside her as he answered. "I... I don't remember. I ran away and I hid--I don't know how long."

_Would he have been better off as Tranquil?_ Raven thought, with a twinge of sympathy. She'd never before thought that Tranquility could be a better alternative to _anything_\--but to live forever in this little closed-off island of the Fade as a mouse, your only companions spirits and dreamers? "I'm sorry for what happened to you," she said quietly.

"Don't waste time with that talk--you don't want to end up like... this," Mouse said, and Raven caught his shudder from the corner of her eye. "There's something here, contained, just for an apprentice like you. You have to face the creature, a demon, and resist it... if you can. That's your way out--or your opponent's, if the Templars weren't there to kill you." His voice went bitter. "A test for you, a _tease_ for the creatures of the Fade."

They ducked under a large, gnarled root that spanned the path--well, _Mouse_ had to duck, while Raven just tilted her head a little--and the path ahead began to open up into a wider clearing, although Raven still couldn't see more than a few feet ahead of her due to the odd curvature of the island. _It doesn't have to conform to mortal rules,_ she reminded herself; it was entirely possible she was traversing a small sphere, reorienting itself with her footsteps so the Black City was always in sight. "Anything can die," she mused, thinking of the wisps. "I doubt the test is as simple as that."

Mouse nodded. "You would be a fool to attack everything you see. What you face is powerful, cunning."

And without even a staff, Raven had few options. "Do you have a suggestion, then?" His voice had seemed to indicate such.

"There are... others here, other spirits," Mouse said. "They will tell you more, maybe help--if you dare trust them." His voice went small. "I'll follow, if that's all right. My chance was long ago, but you... you may have a way out--"

He shifted abruptly back into his mouse form as a wisp darted out from behind the bare trees clinging to the path's edge, and Raven took out the spirit before it could harm either of them. A shock like those she'd endured without complaint could be devastating to someone as small as Mouse.

As its chiming echo against her skin died out, Raven tipped her head, straining to hear something that didn't actually reach her physical ears; there was something up ahead, a deep bass note that filtered deep into her core and made her feel somehow... stronger. More capable. A little of the fear she'd been carrying, without really noticing it, faded away under the sound.

Mouse seemed to have noticed her hesitation. "There's another spirit up ahead," he confirmed. "It never seemed equal to its name, to me."

Bolstered by the spirit's presence, Raven stepped into the clearing ahead. A glowing figure stood just out of sight of the path, before a row of weapon racks that shimmered like the wave of heat above a flame; blades also hung suspended in the air, as though they had become tired of simply resting in racks.

The spirit itself was translucent, dressed as a Templar, although the eyes visible behind its helmet were kind as they took in Raven's form. "Another mortal thrown into the flames and left to burn, I see," it said, its voice a pleasant complement to the deep note of its presence. "Your mages have devised a cowardly test--better you were pitted against each other, to prove your mettle with skill, than to be sent unarmed against a demon."

"You know why I'm here, then," Raven said, bowing slightly to the spirit; it felt like the right thing to do.

It seemed to approve. "You are not the first sent here for such testing," it confirmed. "Nor shall you be the last, I suspect. That you remain means you have not yet defeated your hunter; I wish you a glorious battle to come."

Raven was beginning to suspect what this spirit embodied, but felt it was polite to ask. "What kind of spirit are you?"

It stood tall and proud, shoulders squared, as it replied. "I am Valor, a warrior spirit. I hone my weapons in search of the perfect expression of combat."

"Did you create all these weapons, then?" Raven asked, looking them over. There were blades of at least a dozen different styles: broadswords, longswords, blades with curves and hooks and teeth--and, nearly out of sight behind the spirit, a rack of staves. Some were smooth and tipped with crystals, others seemingly carved from living trees. Her fingers twitched with the desire to touch them, see how they might augment her magic, but she held back.

"They are brought into being by my will," Valor explained, turning its head to look fondly at one of the blades hanging in the air. "I understand that in your world, mages are the only ones who can will things into being--those mortals who cannot must lead such hollow, empty lives."

A smile tugged at the corners of Raven's mouth; trust a spirit to think that mages were the best sorts of mortals.

Another glance at the staves, and Raven recalled Mouse's words: that the other spirits here might be able to help. _Perhaps this is part of the test--learning to tell the difference between helpful spirits and those who wish only to take advantage of you,_ she thought. She wet her lips and forced herself to speak. "Would one of your weapons affect the demon?"

Valor's chin jerked proudly upward. "Without a doubt," it assured her. "In this realm, everything that exists is the expression of a thought. Do you think these blades be steel? The staves be wood? Do you believe they draw blood? A weapon is a single need for battle, and my will makes that need reality."

_My will. My will is real._ The staves looked just as solid as the one still hanging from the rack on her bed; looking at them, it was not hard to believe that they could affect the world around them. 

Valor followed her gaze. "Do you truly desire one of my weapons?" it asked. "I will give one to you... if you agree to duel me, first. Valor shall test your mettle as it _should_ be tested."

Raven weighed her options. While she had some skill at manipulating the Fade, she'd never had much chance to practice; even if she managed to create a staff of her own, here where she'd already had such trouble using her will, she was unsure whether she could imbue it with the 'need for battle'. She had only used magic against another in practice sessions, with instructors close at hand to oversee the results and step in if spells went awry. Actively attempting to defeat a demon was levels of magnitude above her current experience.

_It's simply a test. Another test, like those you've taken all your life. This one just has less direct oversight than the others._ The knowledge did little to still Raven's shaking hands, but did help her make up her mind. "What are the rules of this duel?" she asked, listening carefully for any hint of deception; it was possible, though unlikely, that this 'Valor' was in fact the demon who had been summoned for her. She would have to be prepared for anything.

"If I believe you capable of slaying the demon, I will stop the duel and give you the staff. If I find you unworthy, I will slay you," it stated, simple and matter-of-fact. No coercion, no demands; Raven thought that if she simply walked away, to deal with the demon on her own terms, Valor would do nothing to stop her. This, more than anything else, helped soothe her.

"I trust those rules are simple enough to remember, mortal?" it asked, and Raven nodded.

"I agree to your duel, Valor," she said, already working out logistics; although she had never herself faced a Templar in battle, she had upon occasion observed their training exercises through the tower windows, and events in her past had given her incentive to contemplate how to fight someone armed and armored.

And... were she to fall here, then she would likely not have been able to resist the demon, either. Wouldn't a simple death in the Fade be better than being possessed and brought down by the Templars?

"As you wish, mortal," Valor said, and drew its blade. "Our duel begins now. Fight with Valor!"

Raven held back a startled laugh at this pun, a burst of frost already leaving her fingertips as the blade came down toward her; ice formed over Valor's form as Raven jumped back, flinging a bolt of magical energy toward the spirit. It was then she discovered something unsettling: she was as yet unused to using magic here in the Fade, and her spells had drained her reserves more quickly than she was used to. Ambient energy began to collect within her, but Valor would be upon her before she mustered enough for another spell.

With no other options, Raven pulled back one fist and drove it at Valor, aiming for the spirit's neck; she hoped the blow would stun the spirit enough, despite its armor, to keep it from catching her with its blade.

The attempt was only marginally successful; one of Raven's knuckles split, and as she recovered her balance, the tip of Valor's sword cut through the left shoulder of Raven's robes--drawing blood, but not biting deep enough to disable her arm. At the touch of the blade, Raven pulled on the will within it, gathering enough to fuel another frost spell. The burst of magic slowed Valor's backswing, and Raven attempted another blow--

Valor stepped back. "Enough," it said, and Raven blinked in surprise at the warmth in its voice. "Your strength is sufficient to the task. The staff is yours."

Raven's hand came up reflexively, accepting the staff he handed to her. "Thank you," she said, marvelling at the weight of the wood in her hand; it seemed solid, real, but something about it shivered through her skin.

"May you find glory in all your achievements, mortal," Valor said, and turned back to its blades. Raven was obviously dismissed.

She walked back to Mouse, running her hands along the staff; it was a simple length of twisted wood, smooth--far smoother than her own back in the real world, without a splinter or rough patch to be found. The wood glowed faintly in Raven's hands, and as she explored the texture, she thought she could feel how it had been shaped. _My will is real,_ she reminded herself, and concentrated on the sensation of raw Fade matter molded into a weapon.

The wood shifted beneath her hands, the simple oak taking on a silvery sheen; the brass fittings at the top lightened to silver, their lines growing more delicate, and the faceted feldspar they held in place took on a distinct lavender hue.

Raven now held the staff she'd always dreamed of: silver maple with amethyst, perfectly shaped for her hands and hers alone. And as her will infused it, it began to give off the chill of the tower floor when Raven slipped silently out of bed, the cold that radiated from the windows at night as she gazed out toward the constellations whose stories she'd memorized years ago. Cold to heal a burn, to calm a raging temper, to blanket everything in soft, muffled white that lay over the harsh echoes of the ancient stone tower that was all Raven had ever known.

"Thank you," she whispered again.

With one final glance at the helpful spirit, Raven continued along her path, Mouse scampering at her feet.

###### 

The path Raven and Mouse followed on the Fade-island wove past cracked pillars protruding from the earth at bizarre angles, around enormous flowers whose petals curled ever inward in tight spirals, beneath mushrooms that towered overhead and blocked the greenish light from the sky. Raven, distracted by healing her injured hand and shoulder, quickly lost track of time; she _thought_ it had only been a short while since leaving Valor, but it was impossible to tell here in the land of dreams.

_Surely the Templars won't think I've been gone too long,_ she tried to reassure herself, but her heart began to pound, her mouth gone dry, as the part of her that worried constantly grew more certain with every passing moment that she was about to be executed. Would she even realize when her body lost its breath, or would it only become apparent when she attempted to return, and was unsuccessful?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the presence of several lesser spirits ahead, a rough snarl against her senses. When they attacked, shaped as wolves, she welcomed it; the cold she called down against them numbed her. Mouse was little help in the battle, but Raven didn't mind. By the time the final wolf dissipated, she was nearly under control of herself again.

Just in time, it seemed, as yet another spirit lay ahead; this one felt deep and slow, like the scarcely-audible sounds of Raven's fellow apprentices' breathing as they slept. She spared a thought for them, still in their beds, unaware that Raven had been taken from the room, and shivered--best to keep her mind on the present, lest her worries creep upon her again.

"Be cautious," Mouse warned. "There is... another spirit, here. Not the one hunting you, but still..."

Raven nodded to him--she hoped reassuringly--and stepped forward, rounding a bend to find the way blocked by something huge and shaggy.

It took several moments to parse the sight. She thought she recognized the basic shape, curled across the path, as a bear--the form familiar from bestiaries and children's books--but its fur was darker and wilder than any illustration she had ever met. Its color was the dingy rusted shade of old blood, and sharp spikes showed here and there through the matted curls. _Perhaps it, like I, has never seen a real bear,_ Raven thought, glancing from side to side; while she could probably slip around the spirit silently, she would be unable to fool its nose or its magical senses.

Would it be best to awaken it herself, then, so she wasn't surprised later?

She had little time to contemplate this dilemma; its nose twitched, then its ears, and its eyes opened--so slightly that Raven could scarcely discern their yellow-gold color. "Hmmm," it sighed, and Raven felt the pull of its voice on her mind like the pressure of holding back a yawn. "So you are the mortal being hunted?" It sniffed. "And the small one... is he to be a snack for me?"

Mouse flinched, then regained human form--to seem more threatening, perhaps? "I don't like this," he muttered, his voice petulant. "He's not going to help us. We should go."

The bear sniffed again, then pushed itself slowly to its feet. "No matter. The demon will get you eventually, and perhaps there will even be scraps left."

_Not if I have any say in it,_ Raven thought. She eyed the bear critically--if it wasn't the spirit hunting her, was it possible it had been set here to help her, as Valor seemed to have? "What sort of spirit are you?" she asked cautiously.

"It's a demon," Mouse interjected, and Raven suppressed a burst of annoyance at his interruption. "Maybe even more powerful than the one stalking you."

The spirit scoffed at this. "Begone!" it muttered. "Surely you have better things to do than bother Sloth, mortal. I tire of you already." It slumped back down, its head resting on its paws.

Raven settled her chin into one hand, considering. She had already obtained a weapon; there wasn't much else she could gain from conversing with another spirit, especially a demon--one of those spirits who, as all apprentice mages were taught, embodied the worst of mortal emotions.

It hadn't moved to attack, though, and Mouse said Sloth was not the demon hunting Raven. Had Sloth found its way here by accident, perhaps, unaware this was where the Harrowing was to take place? Or....

Her gaze strayed to Mouse at her side, his forehead creased with worry. Was it possible that Sloth could have something to offer _him_?

"You are a spirit of Sloth, then?" she found herself asking; the worrying part of her screamed that she was simply wasting time here, but Raven did her best to ignore it. She didn't want to leave any apprentice, no matter how long ago he'd been lost, alone in this place for any longer if she could help it.

Sloth yawned. "Yes, I am a spirit of Sloth, a creature of the Fade... unlike yourself. Mortals are ever the visitors here." Its paws twitched as though it was making itself comfortable on the hard dirt path. "Still, you serve your function. Only the mortals like yourself are truly annoying."

Raven glanced sidelong at Mouse again--was he not considered annoying, then? Probably because he wasn't pestering spirits from their naps, she thought wryly. "Are you speaking of dreamers?" she asked instead.

Sloth's head tilted side to side, as though it were too tired to truly shake its head. "Many mortals dream. They come here often. But you are not one of those. You are..." it paused, as though searching for the correct word, "_aware_. A mortal with power and will. The sort of creature that some spirits... hunger for."

One eye cracked open again, looking Raven over, then closed. "I might be inclined for such a meal, myself. It would be interesting to see the mortal world through your eyes, live inside your form... but I am disinclined to begin such a struggle."

Raven suppressed a shiver of revulsion at the thought; Sloth seemed so harmless that it was easy to forget that only desire and pride demons were said to be stronger than those of sloth. _It won't do to get complacent,_ she scolded herself; the sleepy cadence of the spirit's voice had begun to lull her into trusting it, which was one thing she could not afford right now.

She shook her head a little to clear it, took a deep breath, and asked, "Could you help us defeat the demon?"

Sloth opened its eyes again, looking faintly annoyed. "You have a very nice staff," it noted, yawning. "Why would you need me? Go, use your weapon, since you have earned it. Be _valorous_." The last was said in a faintly mocking tone, as though Sloth did not approve of the other spirit.

Mouse, though, seemed to have realized what Raven intended. "He looks powerful," Mouse whispered. "_Big_ and powerful. He might be able to... teach you to be like him."

Sloth's hearing was apparently excellent; it scoffed at Mouse's words. "Like me? You mean teach the mortal to take this form? Why? Most mortals are too attached to their forms to learn the change."

Raven had to admit that while she'd once wished for the ability to change her form, the idea was now more than a little disturbing. She had spent her entire life getting used to the abilities and limitations presented by her own form--a short, physically weak elven mage--and doubted that using another would be much easier. But she hadn't been asking for herself, after all, and Sloth seemed to agree with her. "You, on the other hand, little one, might be a better student," it said, eyeing the mouse more critically. "You let go of the human form years ago."

Mouse glanced nervously at Raven, then back at Sloth, as though he didn't dare let either of them out of his sight. "I... don't think I would make a very good bear," he admitted, a quaver in his voice. "How would I hide?"

Perhaps it was the quaver, or that Mouse was backing out of something he had suggested, but Raven grew annoyed; she hurriedly quashed the feeling before it could manifest, keeping her voice cool and even. "Hiding doesn't solve anything," she said; hadn't Mouse's current predicament proven that? "We need to face our fears." Somehow, saying it out loud made it sound a little more real; Raven abruptly realized she continued this conversation in part to distract herself from the threat of the demon hunting her. Delaying, however, would lead only to death at the Templars' hands. It was time to move on.

Mouse looked down at her, hurt and anger in his face, and Raven flinched as she prepared for him to come after her. _You have a staff, and he can do little more than any mouse in the tower,_ she told herself. _And--this time you _can_ defend yourself, without worrying what others will do._

"_We_?" he asked, sounding upset but not furious; Raven allowed herself to relax just a little. "I have faced more in this place than you can imagine! Fear is..." he trailed off, his momentary fit of emotion spent, and his voice grew dejected, "...just one more thing."

He sighed. "But... you are right. Hiding doesn't help. I'm sorry, it's the Fade; it... changes you." Squaring his shoulders, he turned to Sloth and said, in a voice that quavered only a little, "I'll try. I'll try to be a bear. If you'll teach me."

Sloth rumbled, sounding faintly amused. "That's nice. But teaching is _so_ exhausting. Away with you now."

Dropping his head, Mouse sighed. "I told you he wasn't going to help us," he mumbled.

Raven bit her lip; to come so close to helping Mouse, only to be turned away? No, if she'd spent so much of her limited time here, she wasn't just going to leave without resolution. "Mouse wants to learn," she said, trying to sound strong and persuasive. "Teach him."

Sloth's ears perked up. "You wish to learn my form, little mouse?" it asked, the amusement in its voice stronger now. Raven wondered uncomfortably whether it had been goading them. "Then I have a challenge for your friend: answer three riddles correctly, and I will teach you. Fail, and I will devour you both. The decision is yours."

Raven bit down sharply on a rush of relief that threatened to break through onto her face; she was _good_ at riddles. In fact, she had at times spent entire afternoons playing riddle games with anyone who would face her; usually a teacher, as she didn't trust most of her classmates, and Jowan--her only friend among the apprentices--was terrible at riddles. Irving, fortunately, had a soft spot for word games as well, so Raven had got in a lot of practice recently.

Furthermore, she had her staff now; even should she fail, she was confident that she could incapacitate Sloth long enough to escape. "I accept your challenge, Sloth," she said boldly.

"Truly? This gets more and more promising," Sloth said, pushing itself up--not to its feet, but at least so it was no longer curled up to sleep. It wasted no time. "My first riddle is this: I have seas with no water, coasts with no sand, towns without people, mountains without land. What am I?"

This was laughably simple; Raven adored maps, and spent quite a bit of time poring over them and wondering what the land looked like when it wasn't simply drawn on a bit of parchment. "A map," she stated.

Sloth 'hmph'ed. "Correct. Let's move on." It cleared its throat--odd, for a bear--and continued. "The second riddle: I'm rarely touched, but often held. If you have wit, you'll use me well. What am I?"

This one was harder. _Held. It likely doesn't mean held in a physical sense--almost certainly not, actually, given the first few words. What, then, can you hold without touching? A lesson, a sermon? No, it has to be something tangible--it says _rarely_ touched. And used with wit--_

The answer dawned, and Raven's hands clenched on her staff as she answered. "My tongue."

"Yes, your witty tongue," Sloth said, and Raven thought she heard a smile in its voice. Perhaps Sloth, too, missed having someone it could have riddle challenges with. "Fair enough. One more try, shall we? Often will I spin a tale, never will I charge a fee. I'll amuse you an entire eve, but alas, you won't remember me. What am I?"

The corners of Raven's lips twitched upward; she knew of only one thing that told tales at night, but was forgotten in the morning. Her gaze caught the Black City in the distance, and she said, "A dream."

Sloth made a faintly regretful sound. "You are correct. Rather apropos here in the Fade, no?" It shrugged itself to its feet. "But you've won my challenge and proven yourself an amusing distraction, so I shall teach you my form. Now, listen carefully..."

Mouse stepped forward, both attentive and tentative, to listen. The explanation made sense to Raven--simply to imagine yourself as something else, to feel its presence and know its form, and to change yourself to match much as she had made the staff her own--but she was as yet unwilling to attempt the transformation herself. She had no way of knowing what problems a shape-change could cause, back in the real world where her body still lay.

Mouse adopted a look of deep concentration, and after a couple of false starts, his body began to change--not growing smaller as it did when he resumed his rodent form, but melting oddly downward as he added bulk. His hair lengthened, spreading across him as fur, and moments later a huge brown bear stood beside Raven. Mouse's new form must be at least three times Raven's weight, and she thought she could climb on Mouse's back and he would scarcely notice.

"Like this?" he asked, and Raven realized that his mouth didn't move, and--now that she thought of it--neither had Sloth's. Were they projecting their voices into the air somehow, or directly into one another's minds? Here in the Fade, it was difficult for Raven to tell--all of her senses were skewed. "Am I a bear?" Mouse continued, and Raven abandoned this line of thought to be pursued when her life was no longer in immediate danger. "I feel... heavy."

Sloth eyed him critically, perhaps taking in the lack of spikes, and made a sound of grudging acceptance. "Close enough." He sniffed. "Go, then, and defeat your demon... or whatever you intend to do. I grow weary of your mortal prattling."

"Thank you," Raven said, but Sloth seemed not to hear; it curled up in the path again, off-center, so she and Mouse could pass without incident.

Raven quickly discovered that the island had somehow looped around while she hadn't been looking; although she was certain she had kept going in the correct direction, Valor's weapons were visible in the distance yet again. Frowning, she did something she had unconsciously been avoiding since she had arrived here in the Fade: she extended her magical senses outward, bracing for the outburst of illusory sounds.

The bell-notes of the wisps were gone, but Raven still heard the deep low hum of Valor, the slow, steady cadence of Sloth. Mouse's scrabbling had become steadier, sharper, more like the sound of one of the Tower cats scratching at the stone floor then the mice in the walls. A faint crackling spoke of Raven's own magical talents, the sound of frost spreading across glass. And there--

She flinched, [reeling in] her far-flung senses. Ahead and to the left, past the snarls of more minor spirits, was another crackling sound--but while Raven's own was quiet and soothing, this was somehow... angry, like a flame that sought to devour her flesh. It seared her mind in passing, leaving her knees weak, but Raven pushed past the sensation. _The flame can't touch you,_ she told herself. _Not here, not truly._

She pressed on, taking the left fork in the path, which hadn't existed the last time she came this way.

The illusory wolves she'd heard sought to block her way, but she and Mouse made short work of them; the other mage seemed to be growing more used to his new form, sweeping a broad paw across the snout of one wolf, digging his claws into another. _Perhaps he'll be happier now,_ she thought. _This has to be better than cowering, hoping things will pass you by and fail to notice you._

The path curved once more up ahead, past plants that looked like overgrown lilies, and Raven's pulse sped up at the sight of smoke rising lazily into the air and dissipating into the green sky above. _This is it,_ she thought, and quietly infused her staff with mana; the resulting chill chased the heat from her face, washing across her like the first breath of winter, and she inhaled the crisp, calming scent.

Then she stepped forward, to meet her demon.

"A spirit of Rage," Mouse whispered, and Raven heard the soft pads of his footsteps alongside her as she stepped into a circle of flame.

Raven had never before seen a rage demon, but its form was familiar to her. Much had been said in her classes about the varieties of demons, of their strengths and weaknesses, their preferred methods of possession and their abilities once they had taken a host. Before one possessed a mage, however, each demon had a natural form, and Rage was no different.

Its body was shaped like an upside-down drop of liquid that had been set aflame. In place of feet, flame pooled on the ground as though spread across spilled oil; rudimentary arms sprouted just below the bulb of its head, and its eyeless face nevertheless gave the impression that it was looking directly at Raven, the force of its hatred radiating from its body as waves of heat. Though there was little water in the Fade's air, a fine mist condensed between the two of them as the rage demon's aura met Raven's, battling the smoke for dominance.

"And so it comes to me at last," the demon growled, with the unpleasant note of flint striking steel in its words. "Soon I shall see the land of the living with your eyes, creature. You shall be mine, body and soul."

Raven had felt uneasy when presented with Sloth, who could have torn her apart in moments had it so desired. Even so, even knowing that Rage was supposed to be the weaker of the two, the surge of terror that rose in Raven then dwarfed any she had felt for... years, now. Before Rage's might she felt insignificant, just as helpless as she had been on that summer day long ago--the day she had first felt the touch of flame.

And yet... she had survived that, had she not? Survived and gone on with her life, and although the scars still lingered, she had overcome them and far worse during her short life. This demon--her Harrowing--was, as Mouse said, only one more thing to overcome.

Poorer mages than she had successfully completed the Harrowing, and Raven would not fall to a mere rage demon.

The realization doused her fear, and the chill of her magic settled over her heart, pleasantly numbing. She eyed Rage with cool dispassion. "Even were I to lose, the Templars would cut you down," she observed.

"They are welcome to _try_," Rage snarled, with cruel amusement in its voice. Its eyeless gaze shifted to where Mouse stood. "So, this creature is your offering, Mouse? Another plaything, as per our arrangement?"

Raven, her face as calm as the lake on a summer's morning, would not let the shock of this revelation unseat her iron lock on her emotions. She had known, after all, that something about this entire arrangement felt wrong, that it was improbable at best that such a weak mage could survive for so long in this place. And she knew others who would make such a deal; her own friend Jowan was one, weak-willed enough that a powerful demon could cow him to its will.

She wondered fleetingly how Jowan would fare in his own Harrowing.

Mouse's voice, quavering but defiant, cut through her speculations, and a particularly solid note in his voice told Raven that he had abandoned his bear form for the moment. "I'm not offering you anything," he said, his voice growing stronger as he spoke. "I don't have to help you any more!"

The demon chuckled. "Oh, and after all those wonderful meals we have shared? Now suddenly the mouse has changed the rules?"

"I'm not a mouse now!" Mouse said, and Raven felt a flicker of satisfaction--perhaps she had helped him, after all. "And soon I won't have to hide. I don't need to bargain with you!"

Rage let out a hiss, like water spilling on a heated skillet. "We shall see," it said, and abruptly surged toward Raven.

She had been ready for this; a gesture with her staff froze the demon solid, and Mouse lunged forward as a bear, raking his claws across what passed for the creature's chest. Raven prepared to follow up on her strike, but a sharp chiming alerted her at the last moment to the presence of more wisps, no doubt drawn by the demon. A shock spasmed her shoulder, and she snuffed out two of the little spirits before they could cause any damage--a distraction while fighting Rage could be deadly.

"I'm sick of hiding!" Mouse yelled as he swiped at the demon again, but Raven's spell couldn't hold the fiery creature for long, and Mouse let out a startlingly deep roar as his paw cut through Rage's flames. Two more wisps took this opportunity to swoop down upon him, and Raven destroyed them and poured a healing spell over her fellow mage--and staggered, clapping the hand not holding her staff to one of her ears. Mouse's presence had... _changed_ somehow, the scratching of animal claws giving way to something louder, a low roar with a sound uncomfortably like laughter at the edges. _Has he been driven mad?_ she wondered, and only instinct saved her from burns as Rage grabbed for her.

Shaken but undeterred, Raven poured more ice magic into the demon. She pulled out as much of the spirit's heat as she could stand, and sent it into the flames surrounding the clearing. The sudden temperature change seemed to destabilize Rage's structure; tiny cracks spread across its head, its arms, and Raven swept her staff up and brought the end down upon the demon.

Rage shattered into a thousand glittering shards, which shimmered in the air for a moment before melting in the heat. The flames and the crackling roar of the demon's presence vanished, leaving behind only the sound of Raven's harsh breathing.

A flash of light, and Mouse regained human form, staring down in wonder at where Rage had been. "You did it," he said quietly, then turned to Raven, a smile spreading across his face. "You actually did it! When you came, I hoped you might be able to... but I never really thought any of you were worthy."

Raven planted the butt of her staff in the dirt and leaned on it, catching her breath and wondering at the tone of Mouse's voice. It sounded wrong, as though whatever she had heard while he'd attacked had begun to seep through into his words... and... what had he just said? 'Any of you?'

'Worthy?'

A creeping suspicion, dark and horrible, began to blossom in Raven's mind. She pulled herself to her full height, no longer willing to show weakness. Keeping her face as smooth as she possibly could, her voice as level, she asked, "The ones you betrayed before me. What were their names?"

Mouse's forehead wrinkled. "What?" he asked, sounding lost. "They... were not as promising as you. It was a long time ago. I... I don't remember their names. I don't even remember my _own_ name--it's the Fade, and the Templars killing me, like they tried with you."

He sounded perfectly genuine. _Almost _too_ perfect,_ Raven thought, aware this could be paranoia speaking... but in this place, could she truly afford to trust anyone? She folded her arms across her chest, mindful of her staff, and looked coolly up at him. "So what is it that you think you can get from me?"

"You defeated a demon, you completed your test," Mouse said earnestly. "With time, you will be a master enchanter with no equal. And... maybe there's hope for someone as small and as... as forgotten as me. If you want to help."

His expression was pleading, his voice softly persuasive. "There may be a way for me to leave here, to get a foothold outside. You just need to want to _let me in_."

His words shook Raven to her core, and she realized at last what she was dealing with. All this time, he had been carefully... _grooming_ her, building up her confidence, leading her to larger and larger victories....

"I'm starting to think the other demon wasn't my test," she said quietly, her heart beating loud in her ears.

Mouse looked shocked, but Raven could see through the act now--thank Andraste she'd realized what was going on before it was too late. "What?" Mouse asked, sounding hurt; it fell a little flat, to Raven's experienced ear. "What are you...? Of course it was! What else is here that could harm an apprentice of your potential?"

_You,_ Raven thought, and stared him down. The staff in her hand radiated biting cold, Raven's emotional turmoil expressing itself through her magic; the air filled with a soft crackling sound, and Mouse's face changed. Nearly everything mortal about it drained away, leaving only distant, smug satisfaction.

"You are a smart one," the demon said, and with rising apprehension Raven now heard the oddly echoing undercurrents beneath its words, the power that disdained physical form here in the realm of dreams. Its voice deepened, with a rumble like thunder, and its body began to shift yet again--not to a mouse, nor a bear. Not this time.

"Simple killing is a warrior's job," it said, its voice somehow smooth despite the contortions of its face. "The real dangers of the Fade are preconceptions, careless trust... _pride_."

It towered above Raven now, more than twice her height and built like one of the golems of Orzammar, its limbs bulging with muscle. Deadly sharp spikes jutted from its elbows and knees; its fingers ended in wicked talons, and a pair of twisting horns grew from its skull. Its eyes, flashing as though backed by lightning, were full of cruel intelligence.

"Keep your wits about you, _mage_," it said. "True tests _never_ end."

And then it was gone, as abruptly as though it had never been there, and Raven's vision went black.


	2. Worry

Raven woke to the blessedly familiar sounds of her dormitory late in the morning: distant footsteps, distant voices, faint shouts and laughter, all distorted by the echoes off the cold stone walls--above and from the sides, not below, as the apprentices slept on the lowest floor of the tower. Silverware clinked against plates somewhere overhead; breakfast was well in session, then, although judging by the low sounds of several girls conversing as water poured into a sink in the next room, it hadn't started very long ago. _Good. I haven't slept late._

Raven usually left her bed as soon as she woke, wanting to be somewhere with a little more oversight than the crowded dormitory; this time, however, she kept her eyes closed, trying to hold on to what she'd experienced in the Fade. _It can't have been a dream, can it?_ she wondered now, thinking back over all that had happened. She'd never known another apprentice Harrowed before the age of eighteen, after all--but no, even now the recollections held a clarity that she'd never known from her nighttime journeys--

The dormitory door opened--the near one, the one with the squeak in the top hinge that no one bothered to oil--and Raven caught her breath, listening closely as someone approached her bed. She relaxed a moment later, recognizing the stride. Jowan's feet always dragged a little against the stone, as though he were reluctant to move about the Tower.

He came to a stop perhaps three feet from her bed, breathing faster than usual. Had he run downstairs to find her--no, Raven couldn't hear the harshness of one unaccustomed to exercise. Worry, then. She felt oddly flattered at the thought.

Jowan spoke then, and his words confirmed Raven's suppositions. "Are you all right? Say something, please...."

She suppressed a wince--the whine in his voice was particularly pronounced when he was worried--and opened her eyes, making the customary check of her surroundings to assure herself no one had laid a trap for her to discover upon awakening. One only had to sit up and be doused with a bucket of soapy water once in her life to become wary, after all.

"Jowan?" she said, biting her lip at the hoarseness of her own voice and sending a pulse of soothing magic into her throat. She could afford to show weakness before Jowan, but many of their fellow apprentices were another story altogether.

Jowan sighed in relief, blowing a stray bit of his unkempt, overlong black hair from his face. "I'm glad you're all right," he said, the whine receding a little. "They carried you in this morning--I hadn't even realized you'd been gone all night."

Raven held back a smile; in her experience, Jowan rarely noticed anything more than two feet in front of him, and considering he was nearly six feet tall, this made for some extreme acts of clumsiness.

Jowan glanced at the door, then back to Raven, and he tried to drop his voice. It didn't really work; instead of lowering the volume much, it simply made him raspier. "I've heard about apprentices who never come back from Harrowings. Is it really that dangerous? What was it like?"

Raven's face smoothed over, hiding the sinking feeling in her gut--she should have expected this, really. In all the years she'd known Jowan, he'd never once displayed more sense than a yearling cat. "Jowan, we're friends, but please don't ask that. You know I can't tell you."

He rolled his eyes and scoffed; to her relief, his voice went faintly teasing. "So much for friendship. I'll leave you alone, then." He made no such move, and Raven rewarded him with a smile--a quirk of one corner of her mouth, really, but it was the closest he usually got, and he seemed pleased to see it. "And now you get to move to the nice mages' quarters upstairs. I'm stuck here, and...."

Jowan's smile slipped, and the humor left his voice. "And... I don't know when they'll call me for _my_ Harrowing."

_Ah._ Everything clicked into place: Jowan, more than five years Raven's senior, was growing concerned now that his best friend had been Harrowed and he hadn't. "I'm sure they'll call for you soon," Raven said, trying to sound soothing; her own doubts from the Fade seemed to haunt her.

Jowan hung his head, not really looking at her; the whine in his voice grew stronger as he spoke. "I've been here longer than you have. Sometimes I think... they just don't _want_ to test me."

Raven's mouth felt suddenly dry, and she swallowed surreptitiously. "What do you mean?"

Jowan leaned against the wall behind him. "The Tranquil never go through a Harrowing," he said bitterly. "You do the Harrowing, the Rite of Tranquility... or you die."

_Getting a little morbid in your old age, Jowan?_ Raven thought, but didn't say it--he couldn't always tell when she was joking. "They're not going to kill you, Jowan," she said instead, swallowing a lump in her throat. A little part of her was upset that he wasn't happier for her on her big day, but she could understand where his concerns were coming from. Without Raven in the dormitories with him, Jowan would have no one to study with, no one to sit with at mealtimes... while she would be thrust abruptly into a place entirely different from the one she'd spent thirteen years learning to adapt to. It would be a rough transition for them both.

"They might not," Jowan allowed, pulling Raven's attention back to their conversation. "But the Rite is just as bad--maybe worse. You've seen Owain, who runs the stockroom? He's so cold. No, not even cold; there's just... nothing in him. It's like he's dead, but still walking. His voice, his eyes--they're lifeless."

Raven held back a shudder of revulsion. Yes, she'd seen Owain once or twice, and after that had made every effort to avoid him and the other Tranquil in the tower. His voice sounded _wrong_, deadened, as though it wouldn't even echo if he were to shout. And he never shouted--the Tranquil never raised their voices, never whispered. Their inflection never changed. Raven could scarcely tell the difference between them; everything that had made them _unique_ had been stripped away.

"It's an option, I suppose, for those who fear the Harrowing," Raven said quietly, but wondered anew just how someone could consent to such a procedure after seeing those it had been performed on. Wasn't it better to die in the Harrowing than to lose everything that had made you a person?

Jowan looked up at her at last, his gaze intense. "Yes, apprentices can ask to be made Tranquil if they fear the Harrowing... but I've heard the Circle also forces Tranquility on those they feel are weak. And... that sometimes they force it upon apprentices they think might be too... _dangerous_ as mages."

Raven caught her breath as Jowan's insinuation became clear--he was worried that these rumors might be true, and that Irving or one of the senior enchanters who ran their classes had already decided that Jowan shouldn't be Harrowed. _That can't be true!_ she wanted to argue. She'd seen apprentices several years older than Jowan be successfully Harrowed, apprentices who she'd known to be weak-willed or poor students or just plain unwilling to learn anything that didn't benefit their advancement. Surely Jowan was simply being paranoid, a reaction to Raven leaving him behind.

But Raven couldn't quite shake what she'd thought in the Fade, that perhaps this was a test beyond Jowan's skills....

_Perhaps they gave me to a pride demon because they believed I would be able to best even the most powerful class of demons,_ she thought. Irving certainly thought highly of her, and most of her instructors did as well.

But... wouldn't that leave even a Harrowed mage susceptible to a demon more powerful than the one they had faced in the Fade?

Perhaps it was simply a matter of _once bitten, twice shy_. After seeing what demons were capable of during a Harrowing, you were better equipped to resist them later.

Unless, of course, one didn't _wish_ to resist joining with a powerful demon....

A headache began to form behind Raven's eyes, a sure sign that she was obsessing over something. She forced her attention back to Jowan, whose expression had grown more troubled as Raven failed to respond to his concerns. She opened her mouth to reassure him that he shouldn't have anything to worry about, but he cut her off.

"I shouldn't waste your time with this," he said, a note of apology in his tone. "I was supposed to tell you to see Irving as soon as you woke up."

"Where is he?" Raven asked, grateful for the distraction, although her mind kept picking at their conversation like a healing scrape.

Jowan jerked his head up and to the right. "He said he'd be in his study upstairs. You'd better not keep him waiting--we can speak later."

He turned as if to walk away, but Raven grabbed the sleeve of his robe, halting him momentarily. "Jowan--thank you. For being here for me. And good luck."

A pause, and he nodded acknowledgment, then left the dormitory and Raven behind.

The sounds she'd been distracted from during the conversation came back in full force now that Jowan wasn't taking up Raven's attention; apprentices who had finished eating had begun to move about this floor, making their way into the library to study or back to the dormitory to grab what they needed for lessons. Raven ducked into the dressing room as two sets of footsteps approached the door--not any she recognized as those of her particular tormentors, but she still didn't wish to be caught in the open.

The door squeaked open, and the footsteps paused for a moment before continuing across the room. "Have you heard anything?" someone asked, and Raven recognized the sweet, melodious voice of one of the newer apprentices: a girl a little younger than Raven herself, whose magic had manifested late. "Is she all right? Is she awake?"

"What do you care?" asked the other, and Raven wrinkled her nose; the irritatingly high-pitched voice, words backed by a permanent sneer, belonged to an apprentice who was at least two years older than Raven, who glared when Raven answered questions correctly but had never done anything worse than mutter to the other students about 'uppity knife-ears'. "Are you best friends now?"

"I'm just curious!" the other girl deflected. "That Templar--Cullen?--said it was the quickest, cleanest Harrowing he'd ever seen! He says she's very talented, and very brave." The girl's voice held a note of awe, and Raven quickly cooled her cheeks with the backs of her hands to keep her face from going pink. So Cullen was going about telling people how brave she was, was he?

Try as she might, Raven couldn't keep herself from flashing a quick smile in the mirror before her as she splashed water into her choppy hair and combed it back, taking care to arrange it around her ears.

The older girl sniffed. "Well, he _would_, wouldn't he?" she asked, her voice muffled as though she was rummaging in one of the wardrobes.

The younger apprentice didn't seem to hear her companion's dismissive tone. "I just know I'll be terrified when my time comes," she confided. "Like Wendell was. Did you hear--he threw up every day for the next week just _thinking_ about it!"

"Come on, we need to get upstairs, or Enchanter Cera will never let us hear the end of it," the other girl said, in a voice that said _we're done talking about it_. The younger girl squeaked, and her steps were hurried as she left the room.

Raven cast her senses about to reassure herself that no one else lay in wait, then made her way out of her dormitory, past the boys' dormitory, and toward the lower library.

Her steps slowed, as they always did, when she stepped into the library; something about this room, with its hushed atmosphere and its dozens of bookshelves stretching at least fifteen feet high, seemed to demand awe. She breathed in deep, savoring the smell of magic and old books. _Is the mages' library much like this?_ she wondered; its use was restricted for apprentices, for reasons no one had ever seen fit to explain to Raven. Perhaps it had books on spells that were thought to be beyond the abilities of apprentices, or accounts of Circle politics that would be deemed unnecessarily complicated for those new to Kinloch Hold. Now, however, she would be able to spend as long as she liked there.

The thought was exhilarating, and more than a little terrifying. Gone were the days of waking and eating with the other apprentices, attending classes, homework and curfews. As a Harrowed mage, Raven's time would be her own, to pursue whatever research she chose and collaborate with her colleagues.

For one of the others, perhaps the prospect of such freedom would seem more liberating... but the life of an apprentice was all Raven had ever known. As much as she'd been anticipating her advancement, she couldn't help but worry about how well she would handle such a drastic transition.

She recalled that Irving was waiting for her, and stepped forward, grateful for the brief respite from the echoes that seemed omnipresent everywhere else in the Tower. There was the long study table, carved long ago with some forgotten sigil now surrounded by idle scratchings; there, an apprentice beside the section labeled 'Destruction' worked on coaxing a flame into existence under an Enchanter's watchful eye. Raven hurriedly looked away, her gaze passing over the massive statue of some ancient, half-forgotten mage as her steps took her past several fresh apprentices--eight or nine years old, at most--grouped about a patient instructor lecturing them on Circle history.

A mage Raven scarcely knew touched Raven's arm for a moment, whispered "We're all really happy for you!", and scurried off, leaving Raven staring after her in bemusement. The feeling grew as one of the instructors, standing beside the individual study desks, paused his testing of an apprentice's barrier spell to tell Raven he was proud of her. She hadn't really expected anyone but Jowan, Cullen, and Irving to care whether she survived. Was it possible there were more people on her side than she'd thought?

As always, she sidestepped around the ritual circle, not wanting to disturb any workings that hadn't been properly grounded--she'd once seen an apprentice disregard this, and his hair and fingernails had been green for _weeks_\--and made her way up the steps to the second floor--the _mages'_ floor--with her heart pounding fit to burst.

The stockroom was located at the top of the stairs, in the center of the tower; Raven usually tried to avoid looking at it, but Jowan's words still echoed in her mind. Pausing for just a moment, she peered sidelong through the stone latticework separating the stores from the rest of the tower; several figures in the grey robes of the Tranquil moved sedately through, checking boxes. They were eerily silent now, not having the inclination to speak unless spoken to, and Raven hurried through the near door before anyone came to ask them for something.

A moment later she realized her error: Irving's office was at the far end of the Tower, and she would now have to traverse the entire outer circle to reach it. Recalling the blank voices of the Tranquil, though, she decided she was willing to spend a little extra time and energy to avoid them.

This decision was almost certainly unrelated to the fact that the mages' library was right outside the far door.

Raven at once decided that it was less comforting than the familiar lower library--it was airier and more spacious, but that served only to trap every sound made in the room. She could hear the _clank_ of armor as a Templar somewhere out of sight shifted position, the muttering of a senior enchanter as he pored over a book only inches from his nose, a discussion of 'fraternities' from somewhere off to her left. Vaguely recalling the word from a conversation she'd overheard about Circle politics, Raven stepped into the room under the pretense of examining her new surroundings; now she was a Harrowed mage, she might become involved in politics whether she wanted to or not, and she had best begin gathering information.

"--not likely. The Chantry would do something before it came to that," said a man with a deeper voice, tinged with what Raven thought was a Rivaini accent, as she walked toward the back of the room. She was pleased to discover that instead of desks or long tables, this library was set up for semi-private use, with smaller tables placed strategically out of sight from one another--although, alas, not out of earshot.

"Will they?" asked another man, a tenor whose voice made Raven think of a warm bath. She paused her steps, not wanting to drown out any of what he was saying, and savored the sound of the words. "They haven't done anything yet, and I've heard that the Aequitarians are starting to soften a little on the Libertarian position."

"Sympathy for a position isn't the same as support," the other man argued, and Raven took the chance to move closer, her eyes scanning across the spines of books and only taking in about half of what they read--although a number of them did indeed seem to be on advanced magical theory, with titles like 'An In-Depth Study of the Laws of Entropy" making her itch to pull them down and flip through them. "Yet. As far as I know, most Aequitarians prefer to remain allied with the Loyalists. You can see why, can't you? Just think of what the Chantry would do if suddenly the Circles were petitioning for more independence, or even a split."

Raven bit back a scowl--she'd often, over the years, wanted to tell the Chantry where they could shove it. Perhaps she wanted to learn more about these 'Libertarians'. The warm-voiced man, though, seemed to agree with his companion. "Won't be pretty."

The Rivaini sighed. "Those short-sighted Libertarians will get their way and take us all down with them."

A murmur of agreement was his only response; after a moment, Raven chanced walking past them, wanting to match faces with voices. The deep-voiced man indeed had the darker brown skin of a Rivaini, his dark brown hair pulled back in a half-dozen braids; his companion was paler and pinker like Jowan, with shaggy brown hair. Raven had long since learned that few humans sported the same greyish tones that lingered in her own pale skin.

She tried to be unobtrusive, but the Rivaini caught sight of her. "Ah!" he said, and Raven froze, but he followed this with "Congratulations on your Harrowing last night. Good work."

He sounded kind enough, so Raven turned shyly to face him. "Thank you," she said with a nod.

"Were you looking for something?" the warm-voiced man asked, and Raven ducked her head, hoping her cheeks didn't go pink. She was terrible at speaking to people she didn't know.

"No--I'm sorry, I was just passing through. I... I'm supposed to meet Irving, but...."

The warm man nodded in understanding. "He was in his office, last I heard. You know the way?"

"Yes, thank you," Raven said, and took the chance to escape, feeling foolish. _You're a mage now, just like them. You have to learn to speak to them sometime!_

The next few rooms she passed were mages' quarters; she poked her head curiously in one of them whose door had been left open and was amazed to see that each mage had their own bed, wardrobe, vanity, _and_ study table--even their own bookcases!--separated from their neighbors' by _walls_ instead of just bed curtains, and that each room held only four mages. She'd never even dreamed of having such a luxury for herself--imagine, having a place of her own she could retreat to when she wanted to study! She wouldn't have to hide in the back corners of the library any longer to escape from the apprentices who liked to torment her--

It hit Raven then just how much her life was about to change. No longer an apprentice, she was a _mage_. If any of her former classmates tried something up here in the mages' quarters, they would be thrown out without a second thought. She could have her meals whenever she wanted, unrestricted by class times; if she wished to stay up late into the night and study by witchlight, she _could_.

A rustle of fabric, then footsteps as someone within the room began to walk toward her. She rapidly blinked back tears and made to duck out of sight, but a pink-cheeked man with short black hair, leaving the second bedroom from the right, spotted her first. "Ah, there you are!" he said, his voice a little mushy and his words oddly rushed. "You are to be moved out of the apprentices' dormitory, and these are to be your new quarters. The Tranquil will move your belongings this afternoon."

Raven's eyes widened, and she stepped tentatively into the room. "Go on, make yourself comfortable," the man urged, and left her to her exploration.

Her feet scuffed softly against the stone, its echoes so different from the cavernous dormitory, and she drank in the sight before her. The bed's mattress was thick and covered with several blankets. Soft rugs lay beneath both bed and desk, muffling sound and protecting bare feet from the cold stone; a chest beside the desk waited to be filled with Raven's belongings. A screen hid a chamber pot, bathtub, and washbasin--no more would she need to wait for another apprentice to finish bathing. Morning light slanted into the room from windows high overhead, illuminating the worn carvings on the walls, delicate scrollwork undisturbed by generations of apprentices' scratchings.

Just then, Raven was certain that the Harrowing had been entirely worth it.

A quick check of the other three rooms alongside hers revealed that the one to her right was currently unoccupied. To her left was a young blond man, seated at his desk with a book, who smiled to see her, telling her in a surprisingly deep voice that he'd heard she completed the Harrowing in record time; on the far end was a grey-haired woman, her room seeming darker than the others, who sniffed upon seeing Raven and muttered that she hadn't expected the elf would survive the Harrowing. As insults went, it was a little weak; Raven usually heard worse before breakfast each morning. She shrugged and left her gloomy roommate to her devices.

Pausing at her new bookcases, Raven lingered a moment longer--but Irving was waiting for her, and she would have plenty of time later to explore her new room. _Her_ room. She left it behind with her steps oddly light, unable to keep a smile from playing across her lips.

And as Fate would have it, that was when she ran into Cullen.

The Templar's entire face went pink upon seeing her, and Raven's smile threatened to grow even broader. _That looks very silly with his hair,_ she thought, looking fondly at his golden curls. Somehow, the knowledge that Cullen had been there to witness as Raven 'completed her Harrowing in record time' made her feel oddly... fluttery.

"Oh, um, h-hello," Cullen stammered, his eyes jumping about as though he couldn't decide what part of Raven was safest to look at. He eventually seemed to settle on somewhere over her shoulder. "I... uh, am glad to see your Harrowing went smoothly."

Cullen's voice had been the first thing that had attracted Raven to him--it had this delicious note to it, sharp but mellow, like... well-aged cheese, perhaps. Now it sounded a little like she'd crumbled the cheese all over her morning toast. "Hello, Cullen," she said, feeling her lips quirk further upward despite herself.

He still wouldn't look at her. "Th-they picked me as the Templar to strike the killing blow if... if you became an abomination," he said, as though he were confessing a deep, dark secret.

Raven wasn't surprised to hear this, although it did make her heart twinge a little. She'd known that it was impossible to keep a secret in the Tower; someone was bound to know that they'd been speaking to one another. She was abruptly very glad she hadn't let him down--how horrible would it be, to watch a friend be taken over by a demon, and be forced to cut her down or perish?

Cullen seemed to take her momentary silence as indictment. "I-it's nothing personal, I swear! I, uh..." He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly with one hand. "I'm just glad you're all right. You know."

"I know," Raven hastened to reassure him. "And... thank you." _For being here, and speaking to me, and telling everyone how well I did...._

Hit with a sudden, reckless urge, Raven bit her lip, then found herself asking, "Are you busy right now?" Her gaze strayed toward the door to her new room--it wasn't exactly private, of course, but it would be quiet enough for two friends to have a conversation, wouldn't it?

She tried to ignore how quickly her heart was beating.

Cullen followed her glance, and his face--if that was possible--went even pinker. "Uh... uh, yes, actually," he stammered, and Raven felt her own cheeks go pink in embarrassment. A hastily-applied cold spell did little to stave this off. _Fool--what are you _doing_!? You have to get to Irving, and... and there's no future for you in this! He's a _Templar_, for Andraste's sake!_

She saw Cullen glance at her face, then away again just as quickly, and tried to seem unaffected by his rejection. "But..." Cullen said, and drew a quick breath before speaking his next words so quickly she could scarcely make them out, "maybe we could talk another time."

Raven was beginning to feel dizzy from all the twists this conversation was taking. "I... would like that," she managed, and a little of her embarrassment lifted as Cullen twitched a smile at her.

"You can... come talk to me any time you like," he said, and took his leave with a bow.

As soon as he was out of sight, Raven leaned against the stone wall of the corridor, one hand pressed to her rapidly beating heart, and tried to calm herself down. _Any time I like,_ she repeated, reeling from the hope this simple statement had given her. _Any time... now that I am a mage, and my time is my own...._

_Except for today. Irving awaits._

She called mana into her hands and pressed them firmly against her cheeks, grateful that the other mages were all busy elsewhere for now. As soon as she felt the blush had receded, she shook herself back to her senses and continued down the hall.

Past a meeting room, then hurriedly past the chapel--the door was open, spilling low Chanting into the hallway, and she didn't want any of the Sisters or--Maker forfend--the Revered Mother to catch sight of her. They would no doubt want to lecture Raven about her duties to the Maker now that she was Harrowed, and Raven would have to sit there and smile and pretend that she hadn't heard about the dissonant verse of Shartan, or studied the inconsistencies between the Chantry's version of the creation of humanity and what little information the Circle library held about Arlathan, or any of at least a half-dozen other things that made Raven less than willing to worship a distant god who had abandoned his people, and had never even been there for hers.

To her relief, Irving's was the next door, the last before the stairs to the next floor; she cast all thoughts of the Chantry, the Harrowing, and Cullen aside, breathed in deep, and smoothed her face into a [pleasant] mask to hide all her inner turmoil. For Irving, the man who had taken her under his wing and rescued her from languishing in the apprentice classes for years to come, she was willing to be the perfect mage, sweet and agreeable and clever.

She raised her hand to knock, but heard the argument within before her hand even touched the door.

"--many have already gone to Ostagar--Wynne, Uldred, and most of the senior mages! We've committed enough of our own to this war effort--"

This voice, sharp and enunciated, was familiar to Raven if not precisely welcome: Templar Commander Greagoir. What was he doing in Irving's office? The voice that followed, though, was warm and gravelly and almost never failed to put Raven at ease.

"Your own?" Irving asked, laughter behind the words. "Since when have you felt such kinship with the mages, Greagoir? Or are you afraid to let the mages out from under Chantry supervision, where they can actually use their Maker-given powers?"

Shaking her head fondly, Raven eased the door open, and saw to her surprise that a third man stood in Irving's office. Like the mage from the library, he had the dark brown skin and hair--including a trim beard--that spoke of Rivaini blood, but he was no mage. Dressed in armor which featured mostly leather with bright metal accents, very unlike the plate armor Raven was used to, the man bore a dagger and longsword on his back in place of the Templars' broadsword.

"How dare you suggest--" Greagoir began, apparently too caught up in shaking his finger at Irving to notice they were no longer alone in the room, but the third man hushed him.

"Gentlemen, please," the Rivaini said, in a voice that bore no trace of the accent Raven had been expecting--he sounded more Ferelden than anything, but something about his cadence suggested he'd spent time in the Free Marches. More importantly, his voice was deep and rich like treacle, or perhaps pound cake soaked in rum. Something wonderful, at any rate; Raven suppressed a shiver of happiness at the sound. "Irving, someone is here to see you."

All three men turned their gazes to Raven, who resisted the urge to fidget. "You sent for me, First Enchanter?" she asked, with the shallow bow she still insisted on using with Irving despite his urgings that she needn't be so formal. Now, however, with a strange man in the tower, she clung to propriety more than ever.

Irving beamed. "Ah, if it isn't our new sister in the Circle. Come closer, child," he said, beckoning Raven forward. She took several tentative steps into the room, and the rich-voiced man stepped forward as well.

"This is...?" he asked, glancing back at Irving and then looking searchingly at Raven; she stood as tall as she could under his gaze, determined to make Irving proud, whatever this man was here for.

"Yes, this is she," Irving said fondly, and with a subtle emphasis that Raven could hear but didn't understand.

Greagoir shook his head. "Well, Irving, you're obviously busy. We will discuss this later." His words held a note of finality, but Irving seemed unaffected; Raven breathed a little easier as the Templar commander left the room. Even though she had no reason to fear Greagoir in most situations, she still couldn't silence the little voice in her mind that told her to flee whenever he looked her way.

"Of course," Irving said dismissively, and dropped Greagoir from his attention in a manner that Raven could only dream of. "Well, then... where was I? Oh, yes. This is Duncan, of the Grey Wardens." This last was directed at Raven, as Irving gestured to the Rivaini.

Raven was so surprised at this that her calm façade nearly slipped. The books she'd read had much to say about the Grey Wardens, but all of it had been in past tense; the Wardens had been banished from Ferelden during the early Storm Age, two hundred years ago now. Still, the little that Raven knew was thrilling: the Grey Wardens were the only people who could combat the fearsome Blights, when monsters poured over the land and destroyed everything they touched.

The last Blight had been four hundred years ago, in the Exalted Age; twelve years long, startlingly short for a Blight, it had ended when the great Hero Garahel had personally defeated the fearsome Archdemon. Garahel's story, half-recalled from Alienage stories and confirmed in old, restricted tomes, had been one of the greatest injustices of Raven's childhood. The heroic Grey Warden had been an elf... and the Chantry had been instrumental in quietly removing evidence of his race.

This realization had been the impetus for Raven's initial research into Chantry history, and had shaped a good deal of her personality--she had thirsted to learn more, and had grown to love researching in ancient, crumbling texts and tracking down clues, searching for glimmers of information that she could build into a full understanding of a situation, whether it be the fall of the Elvhen land of Halamshiral, or simply the matter of who had stolen Raven's stockings.

And now one of that legendary order was here, in Kinloch Hold, standing before Raven and looking her over. She was abruptly aware that one of her boots was worn at the toe, that she'd been a little sloppy when mending her torn sleeve last month, that she hadn't cleaned her teeth before coming upstairs. Not to mention that she scarcely came up to Duncan's chest and looked to be little older than the new apprentices downstairs and her cheeks were growing pink despite herself and--

"Pleased to meet you," she managed somehow, and was surprised to hear that her voice came out even. Knowing that any attempt at a smile would come up looking twitchy and odd, she settled for a deep nod, letting her hair slide forward a little to hide her cheeks.

Irving seemed not to have noticed Raven's distraction. "You've heard of the war brewing to the south, I expect? Duncan is recruiting mages to join the King's army at Ostagar."

_Ostagar,_ Raven's mind said at once. _Abandoned Tevinter fortress, at the northern edge of the Korcari Wilds._ Then, _wait--mages are going to Ostagar? Didn't Greagoir say that several were already gone--gone, as in out of the Tower?_ Her eyes widened a little despite herself. _And Irving is mentioning this to me--does he intend _me_ to follow, now I've been Harrowed? I've never been outside the Tower in my life!_

_CALM. DOWN,_ Raven ordered herself. _Gather information. Then you can act._ She sorted rapidly through a growing pile of questions, and settled on, "Who are we fighting?" Surely that was something she should know before she made a decision of this magnitude--if, indeed, this was why Irving had called her here.

The Grey Warden was the one to answer her, and she felt herself calming slightly under the influence of his voice. "The darkspawn threat grows in the south--they have formed into a horde in the Korcari Wilds, and threaten to invade north into the valley. I fear if we don't drive them back, we may see another Blight. We need all the help we can get."

Raven nodded once, processing this. _Which explains why the Grey Wardens are getting involved. Still, I thought the darkspawn had been mostly destroyed in the Exalted Age. Have they been lurking underground all this time, growing their numbers for their next attempt?_

Irving cut into her speculations. "Duncan, you worry the poor girl with talk of Blights and darkspawn," he chided. "This is a happy day for her."

Duncan gave an apologetic smile. "We live in troubled times, my friend."

"We should seize moments of levity," Irving countered, "_especially_ in troubled times. The Harrowing is behind you," he said, turning his attention back to Raven. "Your phylactery was sent to Denerim. You are officially a mage in the Circle of Magi."

Raven bowed again, her earlier happiness resurging at Irving's words. "Thank you, First Enchanter," she said.

"I'm sorry," Duncan interjected, raising an eyebrow in confusion--his face was unexpectedly easy for Raven to read. "What is this 'phylactery'?"

Irving smiled patiently. "Blood is taken from all apprentices when they first come to the Tower, and preserved in special vials."

Duncan frowned. "So they can be hunted if they turn apostate?" Raven blinked, not expecting him to sound so upset about this. She'd been under the impression that most people outside the tower were glad that mages were so well controlled, unable to use their dangerous abilities on anyone but each other.

"We have few choices," Irving said, folding his arms. "The gift of magic is looked upon with suspicion and fear. We must prove we are strong enough to handle our power responsibly." He smiled benevolently down at Raven again. "And you, child, have done so. I present you with your robes, your staff, and a ring bearing the Circle's insignia. Wear them proudly, for you have earned them."

He turned and rummaged around beside his desk for a moment, then handed Raven her gifts. "Thank you," she said again, softly. The robe was the pale blue of the sky on a winter morning, more pleasing to Raven than the faded yellow she wore now; from seeing the other mages about the tower, she knew she'd also been given a stamped leather overrobe and a thin belt, much nicer than the shapeless shift of the apprentices' uniform. The staff was made of wood far smoother than her rough apprentice staff and tipped with four metallic blades that Raven could already tell would help her to gather energy for spells more quickly. The ring was a bit too large--she supposed few apprentices were Harrowed when as small as she--so she slipped it onto her left thumb, making certain it wouldn't interfere with the handling of her staff.

"It goes without saying," Irving said as Raven inspected her new belongings, "that you shall not discuss the Harrowing with those who have not undergone the rite." Raven nodded her understanding. "Now, then... take your time to rest, or study in the library. The day is yours."

"I shall," Raven said, trying to decide what she wished to do first. Should she go investigate the library? She'd been working on a theoretical new application for infusing cold spells into an object, a chest or plate or cloth--should she go to her room and practice? She hadn't yet had breakfast, and the apprentices would be in class by now, so now could be an ideal time to eat....

"I will return to my quarters," Duncan said, and Raven was momentarily surprised to realize he would be staying for more than just today. She knew the Tower frequently had guests, but she had almost never got the chance to interact with them--somehow, she'd assumed most of them took care of their business as quickly as possible and then left.

Irving looked thoughtful. "Would you be so kind as to escort Duncan back to his room, child?" he asked Raven, who put her musings aside for the moment.

"It would be my pleasure," she said, bowing to Duncan, and realized with some embarrassment that she'd done so at least a half-dozen times since she'd entered the room. She hastily reorganized her thoughts--even if Irving thought she didn't need to hear about Blights and darkspawn today, there was no guarantee she would get another chance to speak to an actual Grey Warden about them.

"His guest quarters are on the east side of this floor, close to the library," Irving informed her, and she pinpointed the spot in her mental map of the tower. "Now, if you'll both excuse me, I have matters to discuss with Greagoir."

Raven couldn't stop herself from nodding again in acknowledgment of his dismissal. She turned and led Duncan from Irving's study, letting the Templar commander return to the room.

"Thank you for walking with me," Duncan said as Raven stepped gingerly past the chapel, all but pressing herself against the opposite wall in an attempt to escape notice--although should anyone try to speak with her now, she could inform them that she had business elsewhere, which was a cheerful thought. "I am glad for the company."

Raven shot him a sidelong glance; he seemed to actually mean this, and it gave her enough courage to speak up in return. "I wanted to talk to you a little more," she said, trying to hide how shy she felt; she wanted answers, not sympathy.

Duncan smiled. "What about?"

She ordered her thoughts, and asked, "Have there been many darkspawn attacks?"

"Not yet--darkspawn have attacked the surface in ragtag bands, but the bulk of the horde appears to be massing in the Korcari Wilds," Duncan said, apparently perfectly willing to discuss such depressing topics with her. "We Grey Wardens believe an Archdemon is leading the horde, rallying the darkspawn in the hopes of turning them into an unstoppable force."

Raven suppressed a shiver--if an Archdemon were truly sighted, it could mean the start of another Blight. Each of the four previous Blights had been devastating, some raging for more than an Age. "And the king is mustering an army to deal with this threat?" She scarcely noticed her steps had slowed, prolonging the discussion as long as she could.

"Yes. Perhaps it will be enough, if we play our cards right." He didn't sound very optimistic, however.

Raven bit her lip, seeing the door to the guest quarters down the hall. "Why were Irving and Greagoir arguing?"

Duncan sighed. "It is not my place to comment."

She stopped several feet from his door and risked a look at his face. "Please? I'd like to know," she said, putting all her skills at acting into looking and sounding as young and earnest as possible. It was a tactic that had worked at times to get her information, although she always felt a little bad about using it.

Duncan glanced down the hallway, although Raven knew from the quiet in the corridor that no one approached. "Greagoir serves the Chantry, whose relationship with mages has always been strained," he said quietly. "You've realized by now the Chantry merely tolerates magic? They watch only because they feel they must."

Raven gave a bitter nod. "So when they were arguing about the war...."

"Any mages who join the King's army can unleash their full power on the darkspawn. In fact, I'm counting on it," Duncan said. "Greagoir may be afraid of what will happen. What if the mages decide they no longer want to be governed by the Chantry?"

And yet Duncan seemed perfectly willing to recruit the mages anyway. Was he sympathetic to them, perhaps, or did he just see their potential for destruction?

"What are your opinions on the matter?" Raven asked, aware she could be treading on dangerous ground here.

"I believe we must defeat the darkspawn, one way or another," Duncan said, with a note of finality in his tone. "My opinions end there."

"I understand," Raven said, a little too quickly, and led him the last few feet to the door of his room in silence.

Duncan paused at the threshold, one hand on the doorframe, and smiled once more at her. "Thank you for escorting me," he said. Raven nodded deeply, and fled, heading back toward her new room.

Only the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps saved Raven from colliding with someone heading quickly down the corridor. She dodged out of the way, wishing she'd been less distracted so she would have time to hide, and realized a moment later that she recognized the stride.

Jowan was nearly out of sight down the hallway before he stopped, apparently so caught up in trying to find Raven that he'd nearly missed her altogether. "There you are!" he said, his voice--as always--a little too loud. "I'm glad I caught up with you. Are you done talking with Irving?"

Raven nodded warily--she was fairly certain Jowan was supposed to be in class right now, and if he was worried about his Harrowing, skipping lessons seemed a poor precedent. "I am," she said, defensively folding her arms.

Her feelings of unease only grew as she observed her friend: he was jittery, jumpy, glancing behind him every few seconds as though he expected someone to come up and grab him. "I need to talk to you," he said, the whine prominent in his voice. "Do you remember what we discussed this morning?"

_As though I would have forgotten--it was scarcely more than an hour ago._ Raven nodded warily.

Jowan glanced over his shoulder again, making Raven feel uncomfortably twitchy. "We should go somewhere else," he said. "I don't feel safe talking here."

Raven shifted her weight onto one hip. "You're starting to worry me, Jowan."

"I've been troubled... I'll explain," he said, still loud enough that Raven was half-convinced Duncan had heard every word. "Just come with me, please."

His head jerked left and right; when no Templars materialized from the walls, he turned and walked away at speed, forcing Raven to half-jog to keep up. _Is it _possible_ for anyone to look more suspicious than you do, Jowan?_ she thought wearily. Were _she_ to need to speak to someone in private, she would _certainly_ not drag them quickly and twitchily through public hallways. Sadly, Jowan had apparently been born without a drop of common sense.

She tried twice before managing to grab his arm, at which he nearly jumped out of his boots. "I need to put my things away," she said, hefting both staves in one overburdened hand. Comprehension dawned on Jowan's face; he nodded stiffly, watching her duck aside into her new room.

Raven shoved her old staff into the rack on the side of her wardrobe, stripped out of her faded yellow robe, and donned the clothing of her new rank. It took several moments to figure out all of the buckles on her overrobe; by the time she emerged again, Jowan was tapping his toes on the stone floor, his face pink as though he'd been holding his breath the entire time she was gone. At her nod, he took off again without a word.

Her unease peaked as she realized Jowan was aiming for the door to the chapel. She hung back as he pulled open the door, but no one spoke up as he walked hurriedly through, so Raven reluctantly followed him into her least favorite room in the Tower.

It was pretty enough, she supposed, with impressive statues towering overhead and delicate screens making little private areas for the altars, but all Raven could see when she looked up at the stone face of Andraste was the waste of hundreds of hours of her life, listening to the droning of the Chant and itching to be anywhere but pressed in here among dozens of other mages, with the Revered Mother glaring at her. Still, Jowan's pace left little time for contemplation. He rounded one of the screens and came to a stop beside a priest, a sallow young woman with long red hair and a slightly horsey face.

"We should be safe here," Jowan said; Raven gave the priest a once-over and decided if Jowan figured she was safe, Raven wouldn't argue with him.

Still... "In the chapel?" she hissed, pitching her voice carefully to carry only to the two of them--a bit difficult, in such a large stone room, but Raven had a great deal of practice. "The Templars' favorite haunt?"

"We can see the door from here," the priest said, her voice a little sharp and oddly nasal. "If anyone comes in, we'll change the subject."

Raven gave her a level look. "Jowan, what's going on?"

Jowan rubbed the back of his neck. "A few months ago, I told you that I... met a girl. This is Lily."

_Ah._

Everything suddenly began to clarify, like frost melting from a windowpane. Raven had noticed Jowan sneaking about in his free time, but figured that he was just spending time with one of the older mages; she'd never anticipated _this_. In fact, she'd thought Jowan terrible at keeping secrets--not that he deliberately _told_ anyone, but he was certainly careless at times--but he'd somehow managed to keep even Raven from knowing about Lily. And if Raven hadn't known, it was possible that no one knew. True, Raven had been busy with Irving's lessons for the past few months, but she was still fairly observant, especially of her only friend.

Her face smoothed over, betraying no emotion to either of them. "An initiate?" she said succinctly. "That's forbidden."

Lily grimaced. "So you can see why we wish to keep it a secret," she said. Jowan bumped her hand with his, and she grabbed it as though for support; the casual gesture spoke volumes for the seriousness of their relationship. Jowan had always been awkward, but holding hands with Lily seemed to be second nature to him by now. Raven idly wondered just how involved they were, then decided she _really_ didn't want to know.

Jowan flashed Lily a quick smile, then looked pleadingly at Raven. "Lily's been given to the Chantry," he said. "She is not allowed to have... _relations_. If anyone finds out, we'll both be in trouble." His lower lip stuck out, making him look for all the world like an oversized toddler, and Raven bit back a sigh; after all he'd done for her over the years, she certainly couldn't destroy his chance for happiness.

"You can trust me. I won't tell anyone," Raven promised, feeling the words settle around her uncomfortably like shackles.

"_Thank_ you," Jowan said, sounding clearly relieved. "I knew you'd stand by me."

Well, if she was a co-conspirator now, she had probably better know what they were conspiring to _do_. "So what is this all about?" she asked, folding her arms and straightening her spine.

Jowan chewed on his lip for a moment. "Remember, I said that I didn't think they wanted to give me my Harrowing?" he said at last. "I know why. They're... going to make me Tranquil."

Shock flooded Raven's veins, tempered quickly by reason. Surely that couldn't be true. Jowan had misheard something, no doubt, and paranoia had done the rest... He _sounded_ certain, but it could all be a misunderstanding....

"They'll take everything that I am from me--my dreams, hopes, fears... my love for Lily. All gone," Jowan said, his voice rising; Raven made to shush him, but Lily got there first, patting his arm soothingly. Raven quashed a flicker of jealousy--she had no business getting between them, especially as she'd never once been interested in Jowan as Lily seemed to be. "They'll extinguish my humanity," he continued, thankfully quieter. "I'll just be a husk, breathing and existing, but not truly living."

_Trust Jowan to make Tranquility sound overdramatic,_ Raven thought, aware she was being uncharitable; the thought of having the Rite performed on her made her feel ill, but just because she tended to internalize her emotions didn't mean that Jowan needed to. "Why would they do this to you?" Raven asked, half-musing.

Jowan hung his head. "There's... a rumor about me. People think I'm a blood mage. They think that making me a Circle mage will endanger everyone."

Raven's first instinct was to ask, 'Well, _are_ you?', but that probably wouldn't go over well. Common sense reasserted itself a moment later--were Jowan truly consorting with demons, he would probably be doing far better in his classes than he actually was. From all she'd ever heard, maleficars were competent sorcerers, not gawky young men who accidentally set themselves on fire at least once a week. "How did you find out about this?" she asked instead, still wondering whether he was blowing things out of proportion.

That hope was extinguished with Lily's next words. "I saw the document on Greagoir's table," she said solemnly, absolute conviction behind her words. "It authorized the Rite on Jowan, and Greagoir had signed it."

Heart sinking, Raven let out a long, slow, silent breath. "Well, what are we going to do about it?" she asked at last, quietly, her ears pricked for any hint of approaching footsteps.

"I need to escape," Jowan said; Raven was uncomfortably aware of how loud his voice still was, echoing softly in the cavernous stone room, and wished she knew a spell that could mitigate its effects. "I need to destroy my phylactery. Without it, they can't track me down." He bit his lip and looked down at her with desperate eyes. "We need your help. Lily and I can't do this on our own."

Raven's breathing, her pulse, sped up as she contemplated the magnitude of what Jowan was asking her to do. She'd always followed the Circle's rules, _always_. Even when she didn't agree with them, she knew that doing precisely what was asked of her was the only way to lessen the harassment she was subjected to on a near-daily basis; the teachers were usually willing to believe that whatever had gone wrong this time, Raven was a model student, so it could not have been her fault.

And... Irving had helped her, had seen how stifled she was in the regular classes. He'd taken her in, had pushed her transition to full mage as quickly as he dared. Helping Jowan would betray all the trust he had placed in her.

But....

A thousand memories flickered through her--times when Jowan had protected her from the other students, had kept watch for her, had studied with her and eaten meals with her and told jokes to her. The excited look on his face when she'd finally managed to help him form a witchlight or a barrier or any of a dozen other spells they'd worked on together. Listening to his footsteps as he slipped out of his dormitory late at night, seeing his happiness as he looked at Lily.

She couldn't betray him, her first and best friend.

Raven wet her lips, tried to speak, tried again. "You have my word," she said, hoarsely. "I will help you."

She tried to ignore the illusory sound of an iron door slamming shut, with Raven locked on what she hoped wasn't the wrong side.

"Thank you," Lily said, enough heartfelt emotion in her words to make tears prick at Raven's eyes. "We will never forget this."

"So, what do you intend to do?" Raven asked, leaching all emotion from her voice to keep the wrong one from leaking through. She could do this numbly for now, and feel it later--once her dearest friend was gone from the Tower, never to return.

Lily seemed to have heard the change; she, too, dropped much of the emotion from her words. "I can get us into the repository, but there is a problem. There are two locks on the phylactery chamber door. The First Enchanter and Knight-Commander each hold one key... but it is just a door." She laughed, although it fell a little flat. "There is power enough in this place to destroy all of Ferelden. What's a door to mages?"

Raven pointed out the obvious flaw in this plan at once. "What if it's a magical door?"

Jowan glanced at Lily. "We have no choice. We cannot get our hands on both keys."

Silence fell, for a long moment; Raven listened hard, but it seemed everyone else was as unwilling to visit the chapel during the day as Raven had been. Perhaps most of the other mages felt much as she did, and she'd never truly known? Such, she supposed, were the perils of never speaking to anyone...

Jowan made a sound of realization, and Raven wrenched her thoughts back to their current predicament. "I once saw a rod of fire melt through a lock!" he said proudly. "We could get one from the stockroom--but Owain doesn't release such things to apprentices."

_For good reason,_ Raven thought--she knew perhaps two apprentices she would trust to handle a rod of fire for any length of time, even with supervision. _Convenient, isn't it, that you now have a mage on your side?_

Still, she knew Jowan well--she couldn't imagine him doing anything like this unless he was truly afraid for his life. "I will go to the stockroom and retrieve this rod," she said.

Lily sighed gratefully. "We should stay here, then," she said. "One mage at the stockroom will attract less attention than a mage, an apprentice, and an initiate."

_\--all walk into a tavern,_ Raven's mind finished the statement, and despite her worries, she had to hide a quick smile. "I'll be back soon," she promised.

"Good luck. Our prayers go with you," Lily said urgently.

Raven nodded, and slipped as-though-casually from the chapel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have quite a few chapters which are basically ready to go, so all I have to do is format them and hit 'post'. I'll start slowing down once I get to the ones where I've got to tighten up shaky timelines or add in scenes I forgot, but expect to see several new chapters posted in the next few days.


	3. Conscription

After leaving Lily and Jowan in the chapel, Raven took a moment to steel herself, then stepped through the door into the center of the tower, smoothing all emotion from her features as she headed toward the carved stone lattices of the stockroom. One of the Tranquil watched her approach, his features as expressionless as hers, and the comparison made her shudder.

"Welcome to the Circle's stockroom of magical items," he said as Raven stopped before him; his voice was eerily, perfectly flat in a way Raven could never hope to duplicate. "My name is Owain. How may I assist you?"

"I need a rod of fire," Raven said; her voice was a little rough, but she doubted Owain would care.

He looked dispassionately down at her. "Rods of fire serve many purposes," he stated. "Why do you wish to acquire this particular item?"

Raven thought fast--she should have anticipated such a question. "I need the rod for my research into... the fuel requirements and potential thermodynamic capabilities of fire generated from various sources," she said, grateful that she spent her spare time studying magical theory.

Owain turned without a word and stepped into the stockroom; Raven's hope rose, then fell a little as he returned with only a sheet of paper. "Here is the form--'Request for Rod of Fire. Have it signed and dated by a senior enchanter. I will release a rod to you once I have the signed form."

Apparently Raven wasn't alone in not trusting people to use rods of fire responsibly. "I will be back shortly," she told him, running rapidly through a list of the current senior enchanters as she turned away. Uldred and Wynne had left for Ostagar, she recalled, although neither would have been among her first choices to ask a favor of: she'd seen each of them perhaps once or twice during her time at the tower. Sweeney was old and didn't much like dealing with the younger mages, Torrin would want to see the results of her research....

She decided at last on Senior Enchanter Leorah; one of the only other elves in the Tower, Leorah's appointment to the rank of Senior Enchanter had been fairly recent, and Raven had helped her clear giant spiders from the storage tunnels not long ago. Her steps firm and decisive, Raven made her way to the meeting room beside the mages' quarters where the Senior Enchanter could often be found.

Leorah was indeed there, bent over a half-dozen scrolls laid out on a table before her. She didn't look up as Raven entered, which was to be expected; even were this room not heavily trafficked, Raven's brief interactions with the woman had shown her to be startlingly unaware of her surroundings. It didn't make much sense to Raven--as an elf, she'd always had to be on the lookout for someone who objected to her presence. Had Leorah's classmates simply been less malicious than the current crop of apprentices? Or had she been of high enough rank for long enough to be able to relax her guard?

Raven cleared her throat twice before the Senior Enchanter realized she had company. "Oh!" Leorah said, looking distractedly away from her scroll, which rolled itself up the moment she was no longer paying attention to it. "It's good to see you, dear. We're all so proud of your Harrowing--you'll go far in the Circle, I'm sure." Leorah's voice was dulcet, but deeper than one would expect from looking at her short stature and thin frame--a vocal trait Raven shared with her fellow elf. She would be inclined to think it was an elvhen thing, except the only other elf Raven had heard speak at any length was a young man whose voice was a high tenor.

Raven remembered to allow herself to smile. "Thank you," she said, and then hesitated visibly for effect. "I... well, I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am, but I hoped you could help me with something."

Leorah smiled indulgently. "What do you need?"

Trying to look hopeful, Raven held out the permission form. "I've been doing some research, and a rod of fire would be a great help, but Owain won't release one to me without a Senior Enchanter's signature. I was wondering if you could..." She trailed off invitingly, feeling more than a little guilty. Should she be found out, Leorah's name would be on the form, and while Raven didn't think Irving would hold the Enchanter accountable, it still sat wrong to her.

The alternative, though, would be to walk past Jowan's blankly staring face every day and receive no acknowledgment that he had ever known her, and Raven knew she wouldn't be able to handle that.

"A rod of fire?" Leorah mused, taking the paper and scanning it. "Oh, certainly, I could sign that." She retrieved a quill from the table, and remembered on the second try to dip it in the inkwell. "What could it hurt?"

Raven suppressed a wince.

Leorah signed the form with a flourish, blew on the ink, and handed the paper back to Raven with a smile. "Right, there you go. How's that?"

A glance at the form served to alleviate some of Raven's concerns--the signature was little more than a cramped scribble. Were she to try to identify its writer, she would be entirely stymied; it looked like what little writing she'd seen from at least a dozen of the higher-up mages. _I just hope Owain will accept it,_ she thought. "Excellent, thank you," she said, scarcely remembering to sound young and hopeful. "Have a nice day, ma'am."

"You as well," Leorah said absently, having already turned her attention back to her scrolls. Raven left the Senior Enchanter, clutching the signed form to her chest as though she expected someone to come up and snatch it from her. Surely plotting to break one of the Tower's most important rules couldn't be so easy.

Heart hammering so loud she was almost certain someone else would hear it, Raven returned to the center of the tower; Owain looked up as she approached again, and--as though he were an apparition from the Fade doomed to repeat himself to the end of time--greeted her once again with, "Welcome to the Circle's stockroom of magical items. My name is Owain. How may I assist you?"

Trying desperately not to betray how nervous she was--although she was unsure whether the Tranquil man would even notice--Raven handed him the paper. Her hand shook only a little. "Here is the signed form for the rod of fire," she said, and flinched--she'd unconsciously copied his overly precise speech patterns.

He took the form from her and glanced at the signature. Could he perhaps recognize Leorah's scrawl? The thought made Raven's worries redouble, even as he said, "Everything looks to be in order."

Turning abruptly, Owain stepped into the storeroom, reemerging a moment later with the rod; it looked like little more than a burnt twig, but Raven had encountered its like before. The application of will made the tip of the rod burn white-hot... as long as one wasn't sloppy. Misuse of a rod of fire could quickly send the offending mage to the infirmary, unless they were one of the unlucky few who didn't survive the encounter.

"Here is the rod you requested," Owain stated.

Raven took it gingerly from him. "Thank you," she said, although she knew he neither expected nor cared about her thanks. Resisting the urge to glance back over her shoulder at him one last time, Raven left the room, her steps unhurried and walk as casual as she could make them.

She listened harder than ever on the way back to the chapel, arriving with a headache beginning to form behind her eyes from the strain of constantly listening, although she heard only apprentices shifting in their seats on the floor above--and, with a little amusement, the sound of Jowan muttering, "I hate waiting. It makes me nervous."

The chapel was still empty as she reentered, a small miracle. "I have the rod of fire," she said without preamble as she caught sight of Jowan and Lily; there was no sense in wasting time. The sooner they did this, the sooner Raven could be back in her room with no one the wiser.

Until the next morning, when Jowan failed to show up for classes, and Lily missed the morning devotional, and their theft was discovered....

Raven gave her head a short, sharp jerk, shaking such thoughts from her mind. She would worry about that later, once her friends were gone from the tower.

"That was quick!" Jowan said, excitement and worry in his tone as he gazed at the little stick with a covetous eye. Raven made an immediate note to keep it away from him; while she had practiced long to coat a burning surface with a layer of ice to smother the flames and dissipate any lingering heat, she didn't especially want to have to field-test her theories on Jowan.

"To the repository, then," Lily breathed, looking distant, as though picturing the moment they broke free of the Tower. "Freedom awaits!"

Jowan began to walk quickly from the room, but Raven caught his arm. "Slowly," she advised in an undertone. "You don't want to seem furtive--you're just going back to the dormitory for something you forgot." Jowan forgot things often enough that this wouldn't merit mention. "Lily and I will go next, a little behind you, so no one thinks we're with you--she could be advising me on something, I suppose. No one should think twice about the new mage speaking with one of the priests."

Jowan bit his lip, but he knew better by now than to argue with Raven's plans. "All right," he allowed, and left the room alone. Raven winced at the exaggerated stiffness of his walk, but it couldn't be helped.

She counted to fifteen, then followed him in silence, eyeing Lily at her side.

Raven wasn't much of one for speaking with people she didn't know well, especially those in the Chantry, but it would seem odd for them to be walking together in silence. "What do you plan to do?" she found herself asking. What sort of future was in store for the two of them, on the run from the Circle and the Chantry both?

Lily's shoulders stiffened, but she answered softly, casually. "We'll get married somewhere, Maker willing," she said. "Perhaps in the outskirts of Ferelden, or Orlais--far from here, at any rate. And then..." She sighed. "We'll live a quiet life, away from magic. Perhaps we'll be able to buy a farm someday."

Such a simple dream, Raven thought, but one far beyond her capabilities to obtain. For a moment, she almost felt envious of Jowan, grasping what might be his one chance to escape from the Tower, the rules and rivalries and ever-vigilant Templars. Moving through the more populated areas of the tower, Raven and Lily passed several of the armored soldiers, and Raven resisted the impulse to flinch from each one's gaze. The Templars couldn't see what she was doing, couldn't know, and yet she felt their eyes on her long after she passed them by.

Raven and Lily walked as if casually through the lower library, Raven fighting her instinct to bolt, and finally they were through. Jowan stood nervously by the door to the reliquary, jumping as Raven and Lily emerged from the doorway. Sparing an ear for anyone coming their way, Raven picked up the pace at last. It wouldn't do for someone to come along and wonder why the three of them were lingering someplace where they were explicitly not supposed to be.

_The Templars are stationed throughout the library, but have no one guarding this door?_ Raven thought, incredulous. The repository was supposedly _filled_ with dangerous magical artifacts--if the Templars were guarding anything, shouldn't this be it? All her life, she'd thought them infallible guardians... but now that she was actually doing something that could land her in wretched trouble, they were busy elsewhere.

Perhaps the Maker _was_ watching, after all--at least for Jowan and Lily.

The door swung open on well-oiled hinges; Jowan and Lily hurried through, and Raven listened one last time for pursuit before pulling the door silently shut behind her.

Why, though, if she heard nothing, was she more convinced than ever that something had already gone wrong?

A flight of steps led to a level, below even the apprentices' dormitories, which Raven had scarcely remembered existed. She knew that most visitors entered the Tower through the huge doors leading to the broken highway, but had vague memories of being carried up from the boat dock within the base of the Tower when she'd been brought here--a child's recollections, tainted by terror and grief. She shook them off, not wishing to dwell on the past when the immediate future held such danger.

One possible reason for the lack of guards was made clear almost at once: rounding the corner brought them abruptly to another door, this one made of hundreds of interlocking pieces of wood and thrumming with near-silent power that nonetheless made the short hairs at the back of Raven's neck stand on end. A ward, then, and a powerful one.

"The Chantry calls this 'The Victims' Door'," Lily said quietly, and Raven started, realizing that she'd begun to move closer to the door without meaning to. "It is built of two hundred and seventy-seven planks, one for each original Templar. It is a reminder of all the dangers those cursed with magic pose."

This last was recited with an intonation that sounded like a word-for-word repetition of something Lily had been taught in the Chantry, but Raven still bristled a little at the implications. She'd felt cursed a number of times over the years for having been brought to Kinloch Hold, but... there was nothing that could compare to the sensation of power thrumming through her bones and tingling beneath her skin, the knowledge that she could impose her will upon reality and cause it to bend to her wishes, if only a little. The ability to create things that could not otherwise exist, to heal and mend and make things better with little more than a thought.

Magic may have been many things to Raven over the years, but a curse had never been one of them.

She concealed her emotions, reminding herself that Jowan almost certainly viewed his own magic as a curse at the moment--all indications were that he intended to stop using it entirely once he'd escaped. Wryly, Raven wondered if his resolve would actually last, or whether Jowan would find himself in some situation where the easiest way out would be to use magic. He'd never been much for taking the harder, more rewarding path, in Raven's experience.

_Although... if he truly loves Lily, perhaps he'll be willing to try. For her._

"How do we get past it?" was all she said, uncomfortably aware of Jowan pacing nervously at the edge of her vision; his boots scuffed against the ancient stone.

"The doors can be opened only by a Templar and a mage, entering together," Lily said. Raven refrained from pointing out that they had no Templar with them; if Lily knew this much, she would have already thought of a way around it. Sure enough, Lily continued: "The Chantry provides the password, which primes the ward, and the mage touches it with mana to release it."

Raven nodded once, firmly. "I trust you have the password?"

"Yes, I got it from a Templar who recently accompanied a mage into the vault." Raven wondered _how_ Lily had managed to find this out; her first thought, probably an overreaction, was that the Templar had deliberately given Lily the password as some sort of test, to make certain she wasn't going to misuse it, and Greagoir was secretly watching even now, and....

Raven stilled her racing thoughts as Lily turned to the door and drew in a deep breath, raising one hand and bowing her head as though she were bestowing a blessing. "Sword of the Maker, Tears of the Fade."

Raven's magical senses caught the distinct sound of power collecting in the wards, like something semi-liquid being suddenly compressed. The hum of the ward intensified, the active magic nearly visible. "I heard that--is it ready?" she asked, and Lily nodded again.

"Now it must feel the touch of mana. Any spell will do--but _hurry_."

Trying to ignore Jowan's whispers of _hurry, hurry,_ Raven called power into one hand, crisp as the first bite of winter; a faint mist formed around her cupped palm as the water in the air froze. Tiny snowflakes drifted to the ground at her feet as she flicked her fingers, releasing the frost spell into the gathered magic of the wards.

The door flashed white, chiming in Raven's magical senses, and then her spell crept across the wards like frost on a windowpane. Within moments the door was simple wood, and at the touch of Lily's hand, it swung silently open.

Raven stepped through, her nerves jangling discordantly--what if someone else, someone upstairs, had been able to sense that? Would they know that no one was scheduled to be down here, would they know that someone was breaking in--

_Worrying wastes time and energy. It's too late to take your actions back now, so _move_!_

A hallway stretched out to the right, at its end a simple wooden door like those upstairs in the rest of the Tower, but Raven's eye caught on the door just before her, delicately interlocked lines carved into the frame around it. Her pulse sped up--she wasn't certain how she knew, as she could sense nothing in the room beyond, but something told her without a doubt that the apprentices' phylacteries were just through the near door.

Lily seemed to agree, rushing forward and stopping just shy of the door. "Melt the lock off!" she said, excitement warring with panic in her voice. Raven felt much the same, and judging by the way he kept twitching and shaking his hands, so did Jowan.

Raven pulled the rod from her sleeve, stepped forward, and halted as the sound around her abruptly ceased. A panicked second later, she realized that wasn't quite true; she could still hear Jowan pacing and muttering, Lily's harsh breathing, her own heartbeat... but her ever-present sense of the magic that filled every stone of the Tower had ceased as though it had never been.

Heart hammering, Raven eased back a little, and sound filtered in once again--the gentle thrum of ambient magic, sharp little spikes as apprentices somewhere overhead practiced spells, a deep low note of power from wards somewhere. Her breath caught in her throat as a realization hit her, making her ill.

She raised the rod to the door's lock, willed a tendril of mana into its tip, and watched dully as nothing happened.

"What's the matter? Why isn't it working?" Lily asked, her words sharp with apprehension. Raven tried again, but knew that she would have no better luck the second time.

"Lily," Jowan spoke up at last, voice weak and trembling, "something's not right. I can't cast spells here. Nothing works!" His voice rose at the end, and Raven hurriedly hushed him.

Lily stepped closer, running her fingers across the doorframe. "These must be wards carved into the stone--the Templars' work. They negate any magic cast in this area." Her voice went high and thready. "I should have guessed! Why would Greagoir and Irving use simple keys for such a door? Because magical keys don't work! How do you keep mages away from something? Make their powers completely worthless!"

Jowan whimpered and buried his face in his hands. "That's it, then," he said, voice muffled by his fingers. "We're finished. We can't get in!"

Raven stared down at the rod in her hand. _This _can't_ be the end,_ she thought, frustration rising within her. _We haven't come this far to just give up and resign ourselves to Jowan's Tranquility._

She began running rapid calculations, still looking at the rod of fire. She could stand back to heat the rod, but the fire would still be magically generated; the wards would likely counter the flame before it could touch the lock. As she'd mentioned to Owain, Raven _did_ know a bit about relative heat generation between physical and magical sources--it would be nearly impossible to get anything else to the right temperature, even had they time and tools. She doubted Jowan or Lily had lockpicks or the ability to use such, even were the door's lock not impervious to such manipulation--

Raven stilled, scarcely hearing Jowan and Lily's whispered debate about what they were going to do next, and slowly turned her head. _The door at the end of the hall._

"That door there," she said, and the discussion beside her ceased. "Where does it lead?"

Lily's voice was hesitant. "I... don't know." A hard swallow. "Do you think it's another way in?"

"That door probably leads to another part of the repository," Jowan said, frustration and desperation coloring his words. "What are the chances of there being another entrance?"

Raven sighed. "Do we have a choice?" she asked quietly, stroking the smooth wood of the rod of fire with her thumb.

"...No," Jowan agreed, after a long moment. "I'll take any chance I can get."

Lily's footsteps echoed down the hall as she approached the far end. "We can see where this leads, but it won't be easy," she said, her voice still a little quavery. "It looks locked, for one."

Raven followed her, Jowan trailing behind. "The rod should work on those locks, shouldn't it?" Raven asked.

Lily's eyes lit up, then dimmed again with worry. "Oh, I hope they haven't warded that door as well."

Raven stopped just before the lock and extended her magical senses. Unlike the door to the phylacteries, this one had no carvings around it... and Raven heard something beyond, an odd, slithering sound like distant whispers that made her skin crawl. Shaking off the sensation, she willed mana into the rod of fire again, and this time its tip lit with a blinding white glow.

She touched it to the lock, then pushed it _through_ the keyhole; the metal gave slowly under the pressure, and moments later a dull _thunk_ alerted her that the lock had disengaged.

Raven withdrew her mana from the rod, idly chilling it so she could slip it into her belt, and pushed the door with one hand.

It swung open at her touch with little more than a whisper of falling dust, and the three of them stepped into the repository.

The sound of metal shifting against metal sounded loud in the corridor, and the whispering Raven had been sensing abruptly clarified into a low, steady chant as two suits of armor lining the passageway abruptly came to life. _Sentinels!_ Raven realized with a thrill of horror. She should have anticipated that there would be measures in place to deal with unannounced arrivals into a place full of dangerous magical equipment.

Lily gasped, and Jowan let out an undignified squeak, but Raven paid them little heed. She rushed forward, her will coalescing within the joints of the first suit of armor and freezing them shut; it collapsed to the floor with a thunderously loud crash, and Raven involuntarily clapped her hands to her ears, tears in her eyes. The ice she'd generated shattered, sparkling chunks spraying across the floor.

Jowan finally reacted, sending sparks flickering across the second suit of armor; they slowed the sentinel only a little, but long enough for Lily to yank a dagger from her belt and wedge it into the seam at the guardian's shoulder. She twisted, and the arm pulled free, dropping to the ground--rapidly followed by the rest of the suit, as Raven spread ice through its remaining joints. Raven's ears rang from the echoes in the small corridor, but as the sound subsided, she realized the chanting had ceased as well. Apparently the sentinels weren't quite up to the onslaught of three such determined people.

This, of course, at once raised the possibility that the creatures were meant to sound an alarm, rather than to stop intruders. If so, Raven and the others would need to move quickly, before anyone could investigate.

"Come on!" Raven said, and took off down the hall, hiking up her inconveniently long robes.

The three of them moved through the repository at a run, strange and wondrous sights flashing past them: two barred-off rooms full of books that Raven's fingers itched to open; piles of casks that could have held anything from alcohol to lyrium to blood; a room where small dragons lurked in cages along the walls, hissing and spitting little flames at the intruders. Most of the rooms were in good repair, but here and there evidence of magical cataclysms lurked--scorch marks or disturbing brown stains on the walls, crumbled pillars and toppled statues. Thrice more they were attacked by guardian sentinels, physical and mental exhaustion beginning to set in until even Raven found herself praying to the Maker that they made it through, although to her relief the battles left little time or breath for speculation and worry.

And then, abruptly, they passed through a room lined with cells which smelled horribly of old rot, and into the repository proper.

Raven's steps slowed as she took it all in. Rich rugs lay across the stone floors, marking aisles between shelves full of magical artifacts: statues, urns, strange metal devices. A cabinet made of dozens of interlocking boxes stood beside a shelf of ancient texts, their pages crumbling from age and wear. The sense of magic in the room was heady, overpowering; it thrummed around and _through_ Raven, thudding against her heartbeat and weaving itself into her breath.

She would have loved to stay and investigate the treasures here for an hour, a day, a _year_ even--for it would take longer than that to understand them all, she knew. Jowan, however, recalled her to their current predicament almost at once. "Wow," he breathed, stepping into the room--but his eyes were not for the magical artifacts. "That old wall's about to come down at any moment."

Raven followed his gaze, but it took her a moment to see what he was speaking of: a bookcase stood against one of the walls, and now that Jowan had called her attention to it, Raven could feel--and hear, once she pushed through the magic surrounding her--a faint draft, chill as the wind off the lake. She stepped closer, running her fingers over the aged bricks, and they came away coated with melting frost.

_That can't be good for the books,_ was her first thought, and she nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Peering through showed her little but more stone, but there was no mistaking it--despite all the twists and turns they'd run through, Raven had a near-perfect map of the repository in her mind now, and this wall led straight to the room beyond the warded door.

"I think the phylactery chamber is on the other side of the wall behind this bookcase," she said aloud, twitching as magic hummed and rang and buzzed in her ears. On second thought, she didn't want to stay _here_ and investigate the artifacts. Sit outside this room and have things brought out to her, perhaps, but much longer amidst this much magic and she was certain she would go mad.

"The wall looks weak in spots," Jowan murmured. Raven glanced behind herself for Lily and saw the woman crouched at the door, clutching a dagger in one shaking hand, then looked back at the books as Jowan continued, "We should be able to find _something_ that can knock some of the bricks loose."

"The bookcase is in the way," Raven pointed out, but Jowan shrugged.

"If we work together, we can shift it. Come on!"

Raven smiled, aware that no one but Jowan would think she would be much help moving large, unwieldy pieces of furniture. Sure enough, she ended up doing little but keeping books from falling to the ground; Jowan did most of the lifting, and within moments the bookcase had been pushed off to one side. Raven rubbed her ears, wincing from the harsh scraping of wood against stone, and considered the newly-revealed wall.

She bit her lip, thinking hard. She'd read about a spell called 'stonefist', which hurled a projectile at its target, but had never got a chance to try it out--and besides, she wasn't very good with earth-based magic yet. It had proven far more difficult for her to grasp the theory behind earth, when she'd never quite experienced it for herself, than it had been for ice. She _could_ try filling the cracks with ice and expanding them, but that was a slow process, and the chill breeze indicated the wall was likely insulated against such. Perhaps--

Raven turned quickly--catching sight, out of the corner of her eye, of Lily jumping at the sudden motion--and scanned the walls, looking for something she thought she'd glimpsed on her initial scan of the room. Propped in the corner to her right was a statue she recognized from a book on Tevinter artifacts. Shaped like a large dog, it could serve to focus and amplify spells.

She fumbled in her belt for the rod of fire, which she located after a panicky moment of thinking she'd lost it at some point during the scuffles with the sentries. "Help me with this," she told Jowan, and together they pushed the statue into place before the crumbling wall.

Raven touched the tip of the rod of fire to the statue's head, willing her power into and _through_ the tip....

A jet of flame issued from the dog's mouth, setting Raven's heart to hammering despite herself, and she called the spell back the moment she heard the wall give way. _You weren't actually using fire magic,_ she though desperately, trying to keep herself in the here and now, holding on to the thought of the mission she hadn't yet completed. _You can fall apart later, when you're safe in bed._

She swallowed hard, mouth dry, and stepped forward into the mist caused by flame meeting ice.

Raven couldn't see more than vague shapes, but the sound of stones shifting beneath feet told her where her companions were. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly as she heard Jowan yelp, boots scuffing against stone as he tripped and, from the sound of the resulting _thump_, caught himself against a wall.

Lily coughed several times, but Raven paid her no heed, entranced by what she saw as the dust and fog cleared from the room.

The chamber was _cold_, cold enough that frost had accumulated on the walls and floor like snow, cold enough that even Raven knew she would be uncomfortable before long, but its contents were so incredible that she scarcely noticed the temperature. A set of shallow steps led to a raised platform whose walls were lined with shelves, and each shelf held a handful of little glass bottles; feathers of ice coated their surfaces, but their deep red contents were unmistakable.

"This is the phylactery chamber," Jowan breathed, and let out a startled laugh that sounded sharp in Raven's ears. "It worked!"

He rushed forward, checked himself against the wall as his boots slipped on the icy floor, and gazed around in obvious delight. Lily followed him far more carefully, her brows drawn down in concern. "Quick, Jowan, find your phylactery," she said, her voice sensibly hushed.

Jowan started up to the platform--and as his boot touched the first step, sentries came alive to either side of the room.

Raven raised her staff to deal with them, but a booming footstep from behind her warned her to leap out of the way just in time; she dodged aside just as a massive broadsword swept through the space where her head had been.

She spun about, and gaped at the creature before her.

It was a sentry, much like the others--but while the two engaging Lily and Jowan were each the size of a Templar, this one was so tall Raven was certain it couldn't have fit through the door into this room, eight feet at the least. Its armor was thick and richly decorated, and a feathered plume bobbed atop its helmet in a manner that would have been amusing were the guardian not currently attempting to remove Raven's head from her shoulders.

Raven stumbled, scarcely able to think through the magical cacophony about her, already exhausted from her previous battles. She'd never fought anything this large before, or this powerful... but it wasn't as though she had a choice at this point.

Her cold fingers tightened on her staff, and she attacked.

###### 

As the massive sentinel bore down on her, Raven at once tried the trick she'd used on the other sentinels--icing its joints to prevent its movement--but the guardian of the freezing phylactery room wouldn't be taken down by more ice. The armored figure was startlingly quick considering its bulky frame; it swung its broadsword down at her again, and Raven dodged by a hand's width. She glanced desperately at Lily and Jowan, but her heart sank at the sight. Their own opponents had nearly overwhelmed the two, who lacked Raven's skill at disabling the sentinels. She would have no help for the moment.

_Think, curse you!_ she screamed at herself, ducking beneath the creature's heavy blows. Her small size was an advantage; as quick as the guardian was, it couldn't react in time to catch Raven as she dodged beneath its legs and ducked behind a chunk of rubble from the collapsed wall, her staff clattering to the ground where she'd been moments before. The guardian's eyeless helm tracked the sound, then shifted from side to side as it sought her out, but she'd gained a moment of respite.

She forced herself to concentrate, breathing in the biting cold and using it to calm her pounding heart, soothe her burning throat. Lily and Jowan were both still fighting, adding shouts and yelps to the cacophony of metal and magic echoing through the confined space, but Raven pushed it all aside, gathering her focus and extending her magical senses.

Raven bit back a scream as the sheer _noise_ assaulted her. Even though she didn't physically hear magic, her mind interpreted it as sound, and the sudden addition to the din of battle was nearly deafening. She pushed through the magic of the repository and the phylacteries and the spells Jowan was throwing, identifying sounds. There--the chant of a single sentinel, its companion no longer audible... and beneath it, _encompassing_ it, the rumbling bass note of the larger sentinel. What was anchored to the armor was not a spell, but a _spirit_.

It was an entirely different creature, then; the tactics she'd used on the smaller sentinels would be of little use against something semi-intelligent. She gasped, her vision returning as she retracted her magical senses--and found the creature looming above her, having finally discovered her hiding place.

She ducked aside, blood trickling from her nose as her body tried to compensate for the magical strain, but she didn't move quickly enough. One giant fist clipped the edge of her shoulder and sent her flying toward the wall; she scarcely managed to counteract her momentum with a burst of force in the opposite direction. Her head hit the wall, sending pain splintering through her skull, but she'd slowed herself enough to avoid a concussion.

Jowan shouted, adding to the chaos, but Raven kept her senses open as she poured frost over the guardian once again. This time she wasn't aiming to slow the creature; she sought a weakness.

The second sentinel collapsed with a hollow crash and a _whoop_ from Jowan. The guardian turned toward Jowan and Lily, as though it now saw them as a greater threat than Raven, who still lay crumpled on the ground. Frost spread across the creature's thick metal armor, delicate and feathery; Raven followed her spell's progress, listening hard for anything she could use, any change in the sounds around her--

_There!_ A spell anchored within the metal at the small of its back tethered the spirit to the suit of armor. The salt-and-iron taste of blood thick in her mouth, Raven gathered her will and formed it into a spike of ice, wicked sharp and strong enough to pierce steel.

At least, she _hoped_ it was.

The creature lifted its sword arm to bring the blade down on the unarmored Jowan, and Raven leapt to her feet and struck. The white-hot tip of the rod of fire seared into the metal, seeking the anchor point, as Raven spread bitter cold through the surrounding metal to make the area brittle. Feeling her strength ebb, she yanked the rod free and plunged the icicle into the weakened metal, and both icicle and sigil shattered. Tiny shards of metal and ice stung Raven's cheeks and eyelids.

The guardian shuddered, then tumbled to the ground with a resounding _boom_.

Raven dropped as well, her back to the wall, and gasped for breath.

"Raven!" Jowan yelled, making her flinch wearily, and he rushed toward her. "Are you hurt?"

She called upon the last bits of mana she still held, sending them pulsing through her skin in soothing waves of healing magic. "I'm well," she said at last, wiping blood from her face with one hand and hoping she hadn't got any on her new robes. In an exhausted haze, she surveyed the battlefield; blood spattered the floor in steaming droplets from a gash on Lily's forearm, which Jowan began shakily healing. It was funny, in a way. They'd come to retrieve Jowan's blood, and ended up adding Lily's and Raven's to the room in its place.

"We don't have much time," Raven said. She retrieved her staff and pushed herself to her feet, hoping no one upstairs had heard the racket--but no, the lower library was directly overhead, wasn't it? The repository must be thoroughly soundproofed, or Raven would never have been able to concentrate on her books with the sound of all this magic around her.

Jowan stepped again onto the stairs, tentatively this time, but there appeared to be no further traps. His pace quickened, and by the time Raven made her way onto the platform--Lily watching from below--he stood before one of the small, dusty shelves, each of which had a handful of glimmering vials of blood set into it.

"That's my phylactery," he whispered, reaching out a trembling hand and picking up one of the vials, his name inscribed on the label in spidery script. "We've found it! I can't believe this tiny vial is all that stands between me and freedom."

He gazed at it almost lovingly, caressing the label with one thumb. "So fragile, so easy just to be rid of it... to end its hold over me...."

_So melodramatic,_ Raven couldn't help thinking, but held her tongue.

Jowan opened his fingers, and the vial slipped from his hand to shatter on the cold stone floor. Raven let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"...and I am free," he finished.

Raven stared down at the small, spreading bloodstain, feeling oddly heartsick. If only her own phylactery hadn't been sent away, she could do the same--shatter it, break its hold over her. She could leave the Circle, the apprentices, the Templars behind.

But... to go where? She wouldn't be content to follow Jowan and Lily, to tag along behind them as they got married and bought a farm and swore off magic forever. Magic was an intrinsic part of Raven's being; to give it up would be like... severing her own hands, almost. And she knew with certainty that unlike Jowan, she couldn't make her way in the world alone; he'd been nine years old when he'd come to Kinloch Hold. He had some idea of how the world outside the Tower functioned.

Raven had been _three_. Her only knowledge of farming, of animals, of the very _earth_ was what she'd read in the Circle library. All she knew was magic.

The Tower would be her home until she died.

"Let's go, then," she said, her voice subdued.

Lily rubbed her arms, shivering as she looked around at the vials of blood still on the shelves all around them. "I do not want to stay here a moment longer," she agreed.

Raven led the way down the steps, and together they made their way out of the phylactery chamber.

Jowan tried the door and found it locked, but Raven motioned him aside, testing a theory; as she'd hoped, the wards were only on the opposite side of the door, or they might have negated the magic that kept the phylacteries fresh. The rod of flame made short work of the lock from this side.

A _snap_ of discharged electricity and the smell of ozone were all that marked the wards' presence as Raven pushed the door open. She still shuddered at the momentary silence as she passed through--such a marked difference from the sheer noise of the repository.

Up the stairs and back toward the apprentices' floor, and then--and then they would figure out what to do next, after Raven had a chance to rest and eat something. Jowan had accosted her before she could grab breakfast; she was healed, but had used a great deal of mana and needed time to replenish it, and she could do with a bath, and would it be better to smuggle Jowan out in the dead of night, or during the day when it would be least expected, and--

She halted, one hand on the door into the rest of the Tower, horror growing in her as her much-abused magical senses told her the room beyond was not empty. She couldn't hear much, but one sound stood out above any others: Irving's presence, always before a welcome note--a pleasant hum with a bit of gravel in it that spoke to his advanced age and power.

Raven did not welcome it now.

Few mages, though, had Raven's attention to detail, Jowan least of all. He pushed past Raven, unmindful of why she'd stopped, his mind no doubt on the next stage of his escape plan. "We did it!" he said excitedly, his voice too loud--as always. Raven longed to grab him, shush him, but there would be no avoiding this confrontation. "I can't believe it! Thank you, we never could have--"

The hinges should creak, Raven thought with quiet horror. In the stories she'd read, doors _always_ creaked open when doom approached. Instead a hushed stillness fell over the stairwell, as Jowan tugged the door open and discovered what Raven already knew.

Greagoir stood in the room beyond, flanked by a half-dozen Templars, Irving at his side. "So what you said was true, Irving," the Knight-Commander said, and Raven shrank back from his stern, commanding tones.

Still--she was the senior mage here. She forced herself to step forward, to stand tall against the Templars' might. "I assure you, this isn't what it looks like," she said.

Greagoir ignored her. He looked past Raven, shaking his head. "An initiate, conspiring with a blood mage. How could you have done this, Lily?"

He crossed his arms, and Raven resisted the urge to turn and look at her companions, instead shifting her gaze from one Templar to the next. Jowan had been right to think they suspected him of blood magic.

She clenched her staff so tight her fingers tingled. If it came to a fight, she would have no chance, nor was she entirely certain she _wanted_ to fight.

"The initiate seems shocked," Greagoir observed, "but fully in control of her own mind. Not a thrall of the blood mage, then." He scoffed, then turned his head to Irving. "You were right--she has betrayed us. The Chantry will not let this go unpunished."

And then his gaze shifted to Raven. Her mind quailed under his glare, but she straightened, forced herself to look him in the face. "And this one," he said, venom practically dripping from the words. It seared into Raven's flesh. "Newly a mage, and already flouting the rules of the Circle."

Irving stepped forward then, all his attention on Raven. "I'm disappointed in you," he said softly. "You could have told me what you knew of this plan, and you didn't." His voice was gentle, but filled with reproach. This, from the one man Raven trusted above all others, served to break her as Greagoir could not. She began to shake, her breath catching. She had intended to say something, _anything_, about how she couldn't betray her friend like that--but... Irving had been a friend, too, hadn't he, in some strange way? And... by helping Jowan, she had betrayed Irving.

_I'm _sorry_,_ she thought, tears burning the back of her throat, and she knew then that she would submit to any punishment he deemed necessary. Her staff nearly slipped from her nerveless grip, but she forced herself to keep her composure. This, at least, she could give to Irving--she would face her fate with the strength he'd inspired in her, not collapse like a child who'd lost a game.

Jowan, though, was not cowed.

"You don't care for the mages!" he yelled--at Irving? The shout hit Raven's ears like a slap. "You just bow to the Chantry's every whim!"

"Jowan, _please_ don't make it worse," Raven whispered. He might have a chance, even if she didn't--for Tranquility, perhaps, but was that truly worse than death?

She no longer knew.

"Enough!" Greagoir said, his voice commanding absolute attention. "As Knight-Commander of the Templars here assembled, I sentence this blood mage to death." The words fell on Raven like blows. "And this initiate has scorned the Chantry and her vows. Take her to Aeonar."

Lily's gasp broke the stillness that followed. "The... the mages' prison," she said, her voice weak and trembling. "No... please, no. Not there!"

Two of the Templars broke from the group and approached Raven's companions, ready to carry out the sentences, and Raven could only wonder numbly who would be pronouncing her own fate, and when. 

"No!"

Jowan's voice cracked into the quiet air like shattering ice. "I won't let you touch her!" he shouted, and Raven turned to him, shocked, as she heard power building around him such that she'd never heard from him before. It swelled, like a chorus of voiceless chanting, and Raven gaped at the sight of Jowan's belt knife buried in his own hand.

She'd never thought he would go that far.

Raven felt dizzy, staring at Jowan's hand, everything else in the room melting away. She would have expected blood magic to feel different: cruel and seductive, perhaps, or harsh and demanding. A temptress or a taskmaster. This, however... this sounded like _Jowan_, still, but... _richer_, somehow. _More._ As though he'd achieved something he'd worked toward for a very long time.

She shuddered, though her mind still felt numb from shock. This, perhaps, was more tempting than anything else--the thought that using blood magic would leave you unchanged, save for for the extra power it granted. 

That power gathered around Jowan, tinting the air red, and he released it with a gesture. Raven recoiled as crimson tendrils brushed against her face, but the magic rushed past and left her unscathed. The sharp clatter of the armored Templars collapsing to the stone floor made Jowan's target clear, and Raven could hear a spell of stasis settle over the room, slow and heavy. She didn't turn to look, though; she felt torn, worried for Irving's safety yet not willing to let Jowan out of her sight.

_How could he do this to us?_

_To _me_?_

Lily, it seemed, had the same thought. As Jowan stepped toward her, she backed away, and horror suffused her voice when she next spoke. "By the Maker... _blood magic_. H-how could you? You said you'd never...."

Her expression screamed _betrayal_, and Raven glanced away.

Jowan gestured helplessly. "I admit, I... I dabbled!" he said, the whine in his voice stronger than Raven had ever heard. It wasn't how she would have preferred to remember him, had she a choice. "I thought it would make me a better mage!"

_Stab._ Another bolt to Raven's heart. How many times had she seen the jealousy in his face when they had classes together, heard him wishing he had just a little more talent, that he could keep up with her as she pulled farther and farther ahead? And when Irving had selected her as apprentice... Jowan had been proud of her, but she had cringed from the envy in his voice. He'd never been good at hiding his emotions, for good or ill.

If she'd spent more time with him... would he still have resorted to this?

Lily shook her head. "Blood magic is _evil_, Jowan. It corrupts people, _changes_ them."

"I'm going to give it up!" Jowan promised. "_All_ magic. I just want to be with you, Lily. _Please_, come with me...."

His voice was pleading, heartrending, but Lily still backed away, her features distant and remote. "I trusted you," she whispered, and Raven thought she could almost hear the little _snap_ as something broke, irrevocably, between them. "I was ready to sacrifice everything for you...."

Lily's shoulders hit the wall, and she thrust one hand out before her, as though to ward him back. "I... I don't know who you are, blood mage. Stay away from me."

Jowan cast her one last, agonized look, then glanced over at Raven. She wasn't certain what he saw, but he wet his lips as though to say something, some final goodbye....

He gave her a weakly apologetic grimace, then ran, leaving them all behind.

Raven knew what he would do now. There would be no one to stop him but the two Templars at the door leading to the remains of the Imperial Highway, and he would overcome those just as he had everyone in this room... and then he would be free, with his life lying in ashes behind him.

Where would he go, without any of what he'd wanted to take with him? Without _Lily_?

Despite it all, Raven found herself wishing he had a chance, somehow, to start over. Even after all he'd done.

A soft scuff of fabric on stone from behind Raven recalled her to her senses, and she became aware she'd been standing frozen in place for a very long moment. She spun; seeing Irving stir, she rushed forward, crouching before the mentor she'd betrayed.

He managed to open his eyes, peering nearsightedly up at her. "Did he harm you?" he asked, and Raven froze her emotions in place, not wanting anyone to see how much it _hurt_ that Irving was worried about _her_ safety, even now. She shook her head mutely. "Where's Greagoir?"

One by one, the Templars about them began to stir. "I knew it," came Greagoir's voice, off to Raven's right; weary, no longer the commanding tones from earlier. "Blood magic. But to overcome so many... I never thought him capable of such power."

_Neither did I,_ Raven thought, hating herself for underestimating him, for thinking him so weak.

"He lied to me," she whispered, flinching at the broken sound of her voice.

"None of us expected this," Irving said reassuringly, and an inexplicable surge of some unpleasant emotion she could scarcely name welled up within Raven. Why was he still speaking to her as though she had merely erred in a lesson? What she'd done was unforgivable.

He looked up then, away from Raven, who took the chance to breathe deeply and perfect her façade, sealing it over the turmoil of the blizzard building within her. "Are you well, Greagoir?" Irving asked.

Greagoir seemed to be recovering quickly--much more quickly than Irving, if the latter's creaky voice was to be compared with the Knight-Commander's snappishness. "As well as can be expected, given the circumstances," he said sourly. "If you had let me act sooner, this would not have happened! Now we have a blood mage on the loose and no way to track him down!"

This last was said with a withering glare at Raven; she quailed, but held her place, determined not to disgrace Irving any more than she already had. "Yes, Jowan destroyed his phylactery," she said stoically.

Greagoir scoffed. "Where is the girl?" he asked, squinting as though he were having trouble seeing; Raven realized that he must have hit his head on the floor when Jowan threw him to the ground, and behind her back her hands clenched around one another so tight it hurt.

A boot, scuffing against stone, sounded from behind Raven. "I... I am here, ser," Lily said, her voice firm, although a quaver worked its way into her words. Raven was afraid that she herself sounded much the same.

Greagoir strode toward Lily, brushing past Raven with an air of _we'll finish with you later_. "You helped a blood mage!" he barked. "Look at what he's done already!" Greagoir swept one arm out, encompassing the Templars in the room--two of whom leaned against the walls to stay upright.

Raven swallowed hard and forced herself to interject. "Lily didn't know Jowan was a blood mage," she said. Arguing for leniency? She didn't think Greagoir would put much stock in the opinion of a mage who'd botched things as thoroughly as she had, but she needed to at least say _something_.

Lily sighed. "You've been a friend, but you needn't defend me any longer." She inhaled deeply. "Knight-Commander, I... I was wrong. I was accomplice to a...."

A pause, and the rest of the words came out scarcely louder than a whisper. "A blood mage." Soft footsteps, as Lily walked toward the rest of them. "I will accept any punishment you see fit. Even... even Aeonar." Raven cringed from the despair in Lily's voice. How was it that scarcely half an hour ago, everything had seemed so... _hopeful_?

"Get her out of my sight," Greagoir snapped, and two of the less-woozy Templars sprang to obey him at once. He turned then with a _clank_ of armor, and Raven felt as though frost were creeping up her spine as he snapped at her. "And you! Your antics have made a mockery of this Circle!" A disgusted sigh. "What are we to do with you?"

_The moment of truth._ Raven stepped back, turning so she could see both Irving and Greagoir. She lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and stood as tall as she could, trying not to watch as Lily was led from the room. "Do what you like," she said, and though her mind was in turmoil, her voice came out calm and controlled. "I stand by my decision to help Jowan."

"You helped a blood mage escape," Greagoir said, fury underlying every syllable. "All our prevention measures for naught--because of _you_!"

Raven already knew what punishment awaited her. Were it an option, Greagoir might have decided to make her Tranquil, but Chantry law forbade practicing the Rite of Tranquility on any mage who had passed their Harrowing. And perhaps he would have sentenced her to death for her actions even had Jowan not escaped, to set an example for the other mages in the Tower.

She didn't look at Irving. If she saw him now, saw the emotion she knew must be on his face, all her years of rigorous practice would fail her, and she would break down here and now. And she wouldn't--_couldn't_\--do that to him.

A bootstep on the stone floor.

Not the armored tread of a Templar, but quality, hard-soled leather boots. Raven had heard that very sound just this morning, the same measured stride she could now hear as someone stepped through the door leading from the lower library.

Her heart pounding so loud she swore everyone in the room could hear it, Raven looked up, and met the gaze of the Grey Warden.

Duncan's demeanor wasn't angry, or upset, or even concerned. His brows were drawn down as though in deep calculation, the same look Raven's Arcane professor wore when she examined the apprentices' work for flaws. "Knight-Commander, if I may...."

It gratified Raven to see Greagoir jump; he obviously hadn't noticed the new arrival in the room, and he _did_ look furious as he turned to see Duncan approaching.

"...I am not only looking for mages to join the King's army," Duncan said smoothly, as though he were merely continuing the discussion from earlier in Irving's quarters. "I am also recruiting for the Grey Wardens."

He looked directly at Raven, and her breath caught in her throat.

_Is he... does he _truly_..._

Duncan stopped behind her, so she could just see him in her peripheral vision; she now stood surrounded, with Greagoir to her left, Irving to her right, and Duncan at her shoulder. "Irving spoke highly of this mage," Duncan said, "and I would like her to join the Warden ranks."

An odd rushing sound muted his words, and Raven put all of her effort into remaining upright. She thought she should feel flattered, but for the moment this just felt like one more thing, piled on all the rest; her emotions had been pulled a dozen different ways in the past half-hour, and she wanted nothing more than for her fate to be _resolved_, one way or another.

"Duncan," Irving said gently, "this mage has assisted a maleficar, and shown a lack of regard for the Circle's rules." He cast Raven an apologetic glance, but she certainly wasn't about to blame him for speaking the truth.

"She is a danger. To _all_ of us." Greagoir snapped.

To Raven's intense surprise, Duncan let out a quick breath that sounded almost like a _laugh_. "It is a rare person who risks all for a friend in need," he said. "I stand by my decision. I will recruit this mage."

Greagoir shook his head sharply, then grimaced, as though he regretted the quick motion. "No! I refuse to let her transgressions go unpunished!"

Duncan's offer dangled before Raven, a shining promise of a different future--but all she could see was Lily's face as the Templars took her away, and Jowan's blood-covered hands. It wasn't right that the two of them should face such hardship and only Raven be offered a way out. "The Knight-Commander is right," she said numbly. "I must accept the consequences of my actions."

"Hmph. Perhaps not all of our lessons have been lost," Greagoir said. "She knows her place!"

_Snap._

Somehow, it was _this_ that broke Raven free from her resignation--that Greagoir _expected_ her to walk obediently to her death. Because she would, would she not? It had been drilled into her for as long as she could remember that she must blindly obey what the Templars told her to do, whether it be to go to class, or to meals, or to bed, or to the hangman's noose.

Or to an empty classroom, with no one else about....

Raven sucked in a lungful of air. Duncan was speaking, and Raven wrenched her attention back to him as he said, "Don't be a fool."

She glanced up to see him looking down at her, gentle concern written across his features. "You have assisted a maleficar. You must know what awaits you in the Circle."

"Death," she said, her voice quiet but clear, and she abruptly discovered that she desperately wished to _live_. To learn more about the world, and about magic, and history and geography and the constellations... about _people_, emotion and reason and life itself.

"A waste of your gift," Duncan urged. "I offer you something _more_."

_I can leave the _Tower_._

Raven blinked rapidly, holding back tears--to go with Duncan and become a Grey Warden, to leave the Tower and see everything she'd spent her life reading about, watching through the windows? Trees and flowers, animals and people, snow and wind and rain and the _stars_\--

She wet her lips, and nodded, mutely.

Greagoir's eyes widened, as though he'd only just noticed he had lost control of the situation. "What's he doing?" he asked, voice harsh. "Stop him! You are not taking this mage away!"

Irving shook his head, and Raven heard a trace of laughter in his voice as he said, "You know Duncan can invoke the Right of Conscription if he wishes. We must comply--if the Grey Wardens wish to conscript someone, neither lord nor king can deny them." His message to Greagoir was clear: _This is out of your hands, and there is _nothing_ you can do about it now. You no longer control her._

Raven's head spun from her sudden reversal of fortune. "Then... my punishment...."

Duncan held one hand just above her shoulder, and she was grateful that he hadn't touched her, especially when she felt so precarious already. "Greagoir," he said persuasively, "mages are needed. _This_ mage is needed. Worse things plague this world than blood mages--you know that."

His voice changed then, to something very formal, and he said, "I take this young mage under my wing and bear all responsibility for her actions."

Raven could scarcely comprehend the enormity of what he'd just given her. She found herself shivering in... relief? Anticipation? Apprehension? She could scarcely identify her emotions at the best of times, and after a moment she gave up trying. All she knew was that she was grateful, more so than she could ever recall being.

Greagoir looked from face to face, but it was obvious by now that he had lost. "A blood mage escapes, and his accomplice is not only unpunished, but is _rewarded_ by becoming a Grey Warden!" he spat. "Are our rules nothing? Have we lost all authority over our mages? This does not bode well, Irving!"

With a last, furious glare at Raven, he stormed from the room, gesturing for his Templars to follow.

"So... I am to be a Grey Warden?" Raven asked, still scarcely believing how quickly--and thoroughly--her life had been upended.

Irving smiled at last, now that Greagoir was no longer there to take umbrage with him. "Yes. Be proud, child. You are luckier than you know."

There was a distinct note of finality in his words, and Raven knew that if she missed anything from the Tower, it would be the kindness he'd shown her when no one else had. "Thank you for everything, First Enchanter," she said, bowing deeply.

"It has been a pleasure to teach you," Irving said, his voice trembling just a bit. "May you remember our lessons well."

"Come," Duncan said as Raven straightened. "Your new life awaits."


	4. Outside

Duncan accompanied Raven back up to the second floor to retrieve her belongings from where the Tranquil had placed them in her new room. She halted once in the doorway, biting her lip and blinking back tears as she was overcome with a wave of regret. She had been so _excited_ this morning, imagining her life in this room... but she would never have the chance to sleep in this bed, bathe in this tub, study at this desk. The bookcases would never hold anything of hers; the wardrobe contained only her apprentice robes and her old staff, and the Tranquil who had brought her belongings up from the dormitory hadn't known she'd hidden her few smaller things to keep them safe.

She took the robes, in case her new mage's robe became torn or filthy, and tried to ignore the pity in Duncan's gaze as she left the room behind.

Judging by the fact that no one they passed paid much attention to Raven, word had not yet spread of Jowan's escape or of her role therein; the incidents had taken place on the lowest floor, and most of the apprentices were up in classes or eating lunch. Considering all that had happened already, Raven marvelled that it was only midday, although the growing pain in her stomach as she ducked into her--the _apprentices'_\--dormitory reminded her that she _still_ hadn't eaten.

Her bunk was neatly made, with fresh sheets, ready for a new apprentice to be assigned to it. Raven ducked below it, into a space that could only be reached by someone very small, and retrieved her few possessions: a thin leatherbound book that contained her notes on magical theory; a scrap of purple cloth she'd rescued from a senior enchanter's ruined robe after some high-level students had managed to blow up their classroom; a shiny black raven's feather she'd sneaked from the storeroom when she was much younger. She tucked the smaller items into the book, wrapped them all in one of her robes, and followed Duncan from the room, approaching a Templar stationed at the far door--

No, not just any Templar. Raven's mouth grew dry as she recognized Cullen, his pink face unusually pale and his expression serious.

"You're leaving," he said softly, and his gentle words hit Raven like a punch to the gut.

Their awkwardly hopeful conversation from earlier, full of promise, seemed an Age ago now, and Raven found she couldn't look him in the face; she clenched her extra robes tightly to her chest. "I am," she said hoarsely.

He took a half-step forward, his arm lifting toward her a little before falling limply at his side. "For how long?" There was hope in his voice, as though she was simply off for an afternoon stroll. As though such things happened here at Kinloch Hold.

"I am to become a Grey Warden," Raven said, and even now the words didn't seem real. Surely this was yet another trick of the Fade, her Harrowing not yet complete--once she left the Tower, the sky would be green, and she would wake in her bed once more.

She almost wished for Duncan to interfere, to tell her they needed to leave, but he was standing back to give them space, silently watching, and Cullen's sharp intake of breath was loud in the stillness. "That's... quite an honor," he managed after a time, and Raven felt tears pricking at her eyes for all the things she hadn't realized she would be losing.

Like a friend, found where she had expected none; someone who didn't comment when she cut her hair raggedly to avoid unwanted attention, who appreciated her efforts no matter the results, who hadn't pushed when she'd shied away from him and had let her approach him on her own terms.

"Thank you," she said, swallowing hard. "I... I'll miss you, Cullen."

Raven felt the sudden, powerful need to get away from him, before her emotions seeped through the cracks in her façade and spread across her face, revealing themselves to the world. "I need to leave," she said, and turned to go.

"I'll miss you, too."

The words were no louder than before, but it seemed to Raven that he'd shouted them from the skies. Her breath hitched, and she whispered "I'm sorry" and fled, Duncan's boots sounding on the tower floor behind Raven as she ducked through the door that led to the Tower's antechamber. The door that she'd always before tried to avoid, under any circumstances.

Out of sight of any save for Duncan and the Templars at the the door from the Tower, she wrapped her arms around herself, and stuffed all her feelings about Cullen, and Jowan, and Lily and Irving and Greagoir and all the others into a chest she formed in her mind, just like the one sitting unused in the quarters upstairs that would never be Raven's. Her hand twitched as she locked her thoughts away. She could sift through the emotions later, when it was safe. For now, she had to be stone.

"Let's go," she said at last, inclining her head at Duncan, and was gratified both that her voice had come out smooth and even, and that Duncan seemed disinclined to comment on what had just occurred.

"It's a bit of a walk to the outer dock, but I despise the one underground," he said instead, conversationally, as they approached the Templars guarding the door from the Tower. The scuffs on the soldiers' armor indicated they, too, had been victims of Jowan's blood magic, but they seemed to have suffered no ill effects from Jowan's escape--although the Templar on the right glowered at Raven as she approached.

Raven welcomed the distraction of Duncan's words. Now that she wasn't absorbed with her unsettled emotions, every fiber of her rebelled against the idea of walking through those doors. She'd spent thirteen years stamping out every desire to go outside the Tower, and it was more work than she'd expected to tell herself it was all right now, _truly_.

"You've... been to Kinloch Hold before, then?" Raven managed, forcing her gaze away from the Templars. Duncan simply waved to the soldiers, walking past as though they were little more than tapestries on the walls.

"Several times, actually, although this is my first time here to recruit for the Order," Duncan answered. Raven began to marshal another question, but all her thoughts on the subject left her mind as the doors before them swung open, giving Raven her first glimpse of the world beyond the Tower since she'd been brought there more than a decade ago.

It looked so _real_.

Raven was aware she was gaping, but scarcely had the presence of mind to stop. She'd seen Lake Calenhad before, of course, as she peered through the high, dusty windows in the classrooms upstairs; she'd even seen it reflected in the Fade upon occasion, foggy and tinted green, with unseen creatures lurking in its depths.

But now it lay before her like a vast mirror, stretching toward the distant horizon, and Raven could _feel_ the movement of the air that stirred little waves on the surface of the lake--the wind, it must be. It was nothing like the drafts that moved through the dormitory on cold mornings: those were cold, sterile, smelling faintly of dust and ozone. The spring air was cool, but the sun warmed her skin like the braziers in the dormitory. Each inhalation here brought new, rich scents that Raven had never before encountered, save faintly in passing when brought in by visitors into the Tower. 

The sunlight reflected from the water was dazzlingly bright; she reflexively shaded her eyes, her gaze darting about like the dragonflies hovering at the water's edge, taking in the crumbling white remains of the highway that had once marched solidly across the lake, the way the land rose in the distance into hills and eventually mountains. There was just so much to _see_.

And to _hear_\--the sound of the water lapping against the Tower was recognizable, much like bathwater, but of course far louder. There was a whistling sound too, a sort of rushing, which rose and fell as the air about Raven's face did--was it the sound of the wind, then? It made entirely different noises when out in the open then it did against the Tower walls and windows. Chirps and trills from the birds nesting about the Tower were familiar, but so _loud_. And then there were other sounds, ones she couldn't even begin to identify: squeaks and burbles and rustling noises, hums and buzzes and a far-off toll that echoed across the lake.

Resisting the urge to clap her hands over her ears, Raven glanced up, and regretted it almost at once; the sky stretched _everywhere_, clouds scudding across the sky and catching little rainbows where they passed over the sun. For someone who had never seen anything wider than the Tower's ceiling above her, it was incredibly disorienting. She staggered, and Duncan caught her elbow, releasing her as soon as she was steady again.

"Are you well?" he asked, his voice shaded with concern.

"I..." Raven swallowed, shivered as the wind tossed her hair against her neck, and tried to put things into words. "It's so much _more_ than I expected," was the best she could come up with, and she grimaced at the inadequacy of even her formidable vocabulary.

She took a step forward, then another, heading for the nearby dock and the boat waiting at its side; the ground sloped in a way she was entirely unused to, and the soft dirt beneath her boots was nothing like the reassuringly solid stone of the Tower floor. She wobbled again, and caught her balance by planting one end of her staff into the dirt, making sure her footing was secure before moving her staff again.

Duncan followed, keeping slow pace with her, which made heat rise in Raven's cheeks. She hastily called frost to hide it. "It's so much more--" Duncan repeated, as though he hadn't understood her words, and then his tone changed to faint incredulity. "Have you never been outside the Tower?"

Was he already regretting bringing Raven along--a mage who had not only nearly got herself executed the day of her Harrowing, but who couldn't even walk on _dirt_? "No, never," she said, feeling defensive, although she kept her tone level. "Not since I was brought to the Circle. The Templars used to take the apprentices here to the lakeshore for exercise, but I was too young to go with--I was only three. By the time I was old enough, someone managed to escape by swimming across the lake, so the Senior Enchanters decided going outside was too much of a risk. We exercised on the fourth floor after that." She was getting used to the footing by now, her steps growing quicker and surer; feeling as though she'd been babbling, she fell into a shy silence.

"I take it that you can't swim, then, either," Duncan said, and she was relieved to hear that his voice sounded perfectly normal again.

Raven shook her head, noting with interest the hollow sound their footsteps made on the wooden dock. "I can put my face underwater for a time," she said, not telling him that she'd had to learn after a couple of apprentices had decided to dunk her in the bathwater. Eyeing the boat dubiously--it scarcely looked large enough for two people, and the boatsman made three--she added, "Were I to fall in the lake, I could probably shape some ice to float on."

Duncan laughed, an unexpectedly cheery sound. "That's good to hear," he said, and helped her into the boat. She accepted his offer to tuck her possessions into the pack he'd left in the boat, laid her staff across her knees, and settled in as the boatsman set off from the dock.

Raven spent the seemingly interminable boat ride feeling extremely ill; she'd never before had cause to consider that when someone rowed a boat across the waves in the lake, the boat would of course bob up and down constantly. She glanced queasily at the sky from time to time, thanking Andraste that there seemed little chance of a storm, when the wind was audible even in the windowless dormitories. Using a boat at such a time must be an exercise in horror. She huddled at one end of the boat, breathing carefully and swallowing little sips of water from the skin Duncan had handed her, and held a cold spell in her hands; it helped soothe her, if only a little.

No doubt recognizing that Raven would be unable to carry on a conversation, Duncan chatted with the boatsman, who Raven had seen in the Tower a few times but never spoken to. It transpired that the man's name was Kester, and he had rowed Duncan to the tower and back a number of times over the past twenty years for various reasons. He congratulated Raven upon passing her Harrowing and being recruited into the Wardens, telling her that he'd always been fond of the Wardens and that Duncan was a good sort.

Raven merely nodded by way of acknowledgment, wondering all the while about Duncan's version of events--he'd left her conscription entirely out of his tale, merely telling Kester that he'd selected Raven as the most promising young recruit. Leaving her mistakes out of his story felt dishonest, somehow, although Raven could scarcely tell the difference between her unease at Duncan's editing and her nausea from the boat ride. At least huddling in a ball helped to block out some of the sounds echoing over the water, nearly as deafening as the Repository had been.

Despite the indignity, she was seriously considering vomiting over the edge of the boat when it came to a jarring halt against the dock on the opposite shore. Her hands were stiff with cold as she released the spell she'd been holding, and she breathed on them to warm her skin a little before gratefully accepting Duncan's help from the boat. Raven noticed once again that Duncan only took hold of her for as long as she needed to catch her balance. It was nice to have someone care about her personal space--the little that she still had, at least, from years of dormitory life and Templar scrutiny.

Kester bade them both a fond farewell, retreating to a small wooden building beside the remains of the Imperial Highway, and Duncan guided the still-wobbly Raven into a larger building at the top of the hill which sloped up from the water's edge.

The building was filled with small, square wooden tables with two or three chairs set around each one, a long desk of some sort placed to cut off access to one corner. Raven no longer felt quite so overwhelmed as the door closed behind her, cutting off the outside sounds and leaving only the soft _creak_ of wood. She saw only two other people: a disheveled-looking man curled about a mug at one end of the room, and a man leaning upon the desk, who smiled at her and Duncan as they entered.

"Duncan! Good to see you," the man said, his voice creaking as though he often strained it. "Staying the night?"

Duncan shook his head. "We're just here for meals, I'm afraid," he said, and the man leaned farther over his desk to get a better look at the two of them. His eyebrows rose as he caught sight of Raven, still a little hunched from illness and disoriented by her sudden upheaval.

"Ah! Found yourself a recruit at last, did you? Hope she's up to it--she looks about the size of a Chantry mouse." The man shook his head. "I suppose you Wardens take all sorts, though."

"We do indeed," Duncan said amicably, leading Raven to a table in the corner farthest from the drunk man. She sat, wincing as her chair scraped against the wooden floor, and leaned her staff against the wall beside her. "Lunch for the both of us, and I'll need some for the road. We've a week's journey ahead of us, and most of it in the wild."

This was the first Raven had heard of their travel plans--but then, they were going to Ostagar, were they not? She'd read a good deal about the fortress, interested in anything--like Kinloch Hold and the Imperial Highway--which had been built by mages, even if they _had_ been from Tevinter. Ostagar was supposed to be farther to the south than any other settlement in Thedas, at the very edge of the Korcari Wilds and the frozen wastes beyond. She wished she had a map, so she could trace their route along it and see how the marks on paper compared to the living reality. The map she held in her mind didn't have the same tangible quality to it as a paper map.

Becoming abruptly aware she hadn't been paying attention to Duncan, Raven quickly searched her memory of the past several moments, but didn't recall him saying anything; when she looked up at him, unsure, he quirked a smile at her. "I expect it's all rather overwhelming, isn't it," Duncan said.

"I... yes," Raven confessed. "I was planning on doing research into arcane theory this afternoon, not being sentenced to death."

Duncan's chuckle was interrupted by the--innkeeper, Raven supposed, since he'd offered them rooms--coming by with two plates. The food looked much the same as what she usually ate, what she would have had for lunch today in Kinloch Hold: bread, cheese, baked fish, carrots and leeks and spinach. Duncan murmured his thanks, and Raven heard the sound of small metal objects hitting one another a moment before Duncan handed something to the innkeeper.

It wasn't until the exchange was completed and Raven had picked up her bread that she realized he'd paid for their meal. She set the bread back down, staring at her food in consternation; she had some idea that outside the Tower, one was supposed to pay for things, but she'd never before given it any thought. No one used money in the Tower. If Raven needed something from the stockroom, she asked one of her teachers for it; should she need new robes or boots or anything of the sort, it had been provided for her.

It seemed there were a _great_ many things she'd never given any thought to. She had better _start_ thinking of them, and soon.

"Still not feeling well?" Duncan asked. Raven simply nodded, picking up the bread again and taking a firm bite. She could scarcely remember her first few months at the Circle, when she'd never seemed to do anything right, but the thought of being thrust once again into a situation where she was bound to make so many mistakes made her feel even more ill than the boat had.

_I'll just have to stay close to, to Duncan or someone, until I figure things out,_ she thought firmly, and tried not to think of all the ways this plan could go rapidly and completely wrong.

Even hungry as she was after skipping two meals, Raven didn't quite manage to finish everything; she bundled what was left of her bread and cheese into her belt pouch, recalling what Duncan had said about taking food on the road. _Will there be nowhere we can stop and get food?_ she wondered, her fingers twitching as though to smooth out her mental copy of the map of Ferelden she'd often pored over. While there were a few settlements scattered through the southern part of Ferelden, most people lived up in the fertile Bannorn to the east of Lake Calenhad.

She had a moment of panic then, wondering where they were going to sleep, and what they would do to get food and water, how they would keep warm in the night without magical braziers and what they would do if one of them were injured beyond Raven's healing skills. _Duncan made his way up here from Ostagar alone,_ she reminded herself, _and he certainly knows what he's doing. You can leave the details to him._

Still, she vowed to take careful note of everything he did, as well as what supplies he had. A Grey Warden certainly couldn't rely on others forever--she would no doubt one day need to leave Duncan's side, and it would be a sort of betrayal if she hadn't learned to take care of herself by then.

As soon as he finished eating, Duncan approached the innkeeper and spoke with him at some length, finally returning to Raven's table with a travel pack--full of food, then? It would have to be food that could be kept for a time without spoiling, she supposed, and wondered how much money it had cost. Not to mention where Duncan had received the money in the first place.

_I need to write down questions,_ she thought, vowing to acquire a piece of charcoal or something as soon as possible--she doubted a quill and ink would be easy to come by on the road. Until then, she would just have to remember things as best she could.

Unfortunately, Raven soon found as they continued their journey that she had little opportunity to think.

Once they left the echoing lake behind, abandoning the road for what was no doubt a quicker route to Ostagar, Raven had hoped there would be less noise. She'd had no notion of the omnipresent whisper of tree leaves caught in the wind, of snapping twigs and rustling plants and the noises made by dozens of animals that she'd only met in books. She couldn't tell a rabbit from a fox from a bear, and every new sound left her twitchy; she soon pulled up her hood in defense, although it helped only a little, and she still worried that with the cloth over her ears she would be unable to determine the location of anything that tried to attack her. Duncan's casual ease did little to reassure her.

Nearly as distracting were the sights: while she couldn't see for miles like she had standing on the hill above the lake, what she _could_ see were dozens of plants she'd never encountered before, or only in herbalism class, far removed from their natural state. Her mind busily catalogued everything she recognized, placing the others in a growing list of _things I need to learn_\--when out on her own, it could mean life or death to recognize what parts of what plants were edible, which were medicinal, and which looked almost like those but were actually poisonous.

Finally, she was discovering an entirely new form of misery that she'd never before contemplated: physical weariness. Raven was used to being tired, staying up late reading and then waking far too soon for lessons; she had often worked herself into a state of magical exhaustion, when her mana was so depleted she felt as though it would never recover.

But she had never needed to walk more than the width of the Tower to reach a destination, up three floors at the most. The closest she'd ever come to a slope had been the staircases, no longer than twice her height and spaced to be easy to climb. Even the exercises they'd done on the fourth floor had been more a formality than anything: stretches, calisthenics, the occasional dash from one side of the room to the other. She'd heard that apprentices had once been given basic weapons training, but she'd decided--perhaps cynically--that the practice had been discontinued so that a mage whose mana had been drained by a Templar would be incapable of fighting back.

For someone who had never been given a chance to build up her endurance, walking through a forest was little short of torture.

Raven twisted an ankle on the uneven ground before the inn was even truly out of sight. She healed the sprain, but the soreness persisted--growing worse as she kept walking grimly behind Duncan--and was quickly joined by an increasing ache in every muscle of her legs. She was certain that Duncan was tempering his stride for her, but she still had to jog occasionally to catch up, slipping on fallen leaves and tripping over tree roots. When the hem of her robe snagged on branches, Raven had to lift the cloth above her ankles, although this left her less able to use her hands or staff to steady herself.

The temperature fluctuated constantly; shadowed areas were comfortably cool, but the sun beat painfully down on Raven's skin whenever she walked into the sunlight, although this could change any moment as the wind picked up. Her mouth quickly grew dry, each breath rasping painfully in her parched throat, but she didn't have a waterskin and was too shy to keep asking to borrow Duncan's. She added 'waterskin' to her mental list of items she would require to survive in the wilderness.

Her soft, calf-length leather boots had been serviceable enough in the Tower, but they offered little protection in this terrain; Raven considered removing them, but the boots at least helped keep her from constantly having to heal skin scraped off by stones or tree bark. Still, by the time Duncan stopped to rest, Raven's feet were painfully hot. A cold spell did little to help; probing the area with a bit of healing magic revealed that her skin had begun to blister, much like her back had after--

She shoved the unwelcome memory away, shuddering, and gratefully accepted the waterskin from Duncan.

Raven tried not to guzzle the water, having read that this would do more harm than good when one was dehydrated, but it was difficult to hold back when she felt so parched. _I don't know where we can get more,_ she reminded herself, and regretfully handed the skin back over.

Duncan took it, looking quizzically down at Raven. "Are you certain you're well?" he asked.

"Yes, ser," she said, wincing as her voice came out breathless and harsh from exertion.

He sighed, obviously not believing her words in the face of evidence to the contrary. "I'm sorry--I didn't think. You haven't had much experience with physical exertion, have you?"

Raven ducked her head, reluctant to agree. "I can keep going," she assured him; she was good at healing, and didn't want to delay them unnecessarily. Not when Duncan had somewhere he needed to be.

Duncan still didn't look convinced. "It'll be dark soon, at any rate. We should find somewhere to camp while it's still light enough to see."

The prospect was both exciting and terrifying to Raven--to spend the entire night outdoors, with no stone walls to protect them? She had wondered at times what that might be like, but that was before she'd heard so much ominous rustling in the trees around them. Books could do little to impart the sensation of living things all around you, none of them caring that you were young and inexperienced and didn't wish to die.

"Won't we need to find water before we set up camp?" she found herself asking, then bit her lip at the temerity of questioning Duncan. Even though he'd shown no signs of such behavior so far, some part of Raven still worried that now that Duncan was away from prying eyes, he would turn out to be no different from the Templars--convinced of his absolute superiority and ready to punish Raven for speaking out.

Instead, Duncan stroked his short beard thoughtfully. "In a dwarven ruin, I once came across an ancient bowl that had been enchanted to produce fresh water," he said. "I hadn't thought about it for years, but... is it possible that as a mage, you might be able to come up with something like that?"

Raven's eyes narrowed slightly as she considered this. She'd never heard of a spell like that before--had it been lost in the intervening Ages? In her mind she unshelved a text on elemental magics, her thumb twitching as she turned each page, but the closest she could come up with was the spell which allowed her to summon ice.

_Ice is merely another form of water. Could I modify that spell?_

Holding her hands before her, Raven tried to clear her mind of the sounds around her--a far more difficult task than back in the Tower, when the only things that stood out to her attention were the voices and footsteps of her fellow apprentices. A shimmering pool slowly formed in her cupped fingers, but she realized at once that she hadn't been able to adapt the spell correctly--the water was still frozen, clinging to her skin. She held the result out to Duncan. "I'm sorry, this is the best I can do at the moment."

He raised an eyebrow, a smile flitting across his face. "Still better than I would be able to do," he pointed out. "If you heated it, would it melt, or simply vanish?"

Raven considered the ice; her aura was cool enough to avoid melting it, for the most part, but she could already feel drops of condensation sliding through her fingers. "It's actual water," she said. "If we melt it, it should be potable--I've never tried, though."

"Could you melt it, then?" Duncan asked; the words were mild, no different from his previous statements, not implying an order or demand. But the moment Raven considered his words, she flinched away from them, her heartbeat suddenly loud enough to drown out the soft animal noises around her.

_Melt means warmth means fire means--_no!_ I mustn't!_ Her fingers trembled, water droplets falling among the dead leaves with soft splashes; her arms pulled in toward her chest as she hunched, instinctively making herself less noticeable. "I--I can't," she breathed, not daring to look at Duncan. "I'm sorry."

She cringed, waiting for a rebuke that never came. "No, _I'm_ sorry," Duncan said, as though he hadn't noticed her discomfort. "I've a friend who's a mage, but she's never told me much about magic--I'm unaware of its limits, I'm afraid."

Raven's terror at the thought of flame began to give way to curiosity--he knew _another_ mage? Was this, then why he'd recruited Raven?--as he continued, "Once we find a spot to camp, I'll set up a firepit; you can fill the skin with ice to melt against the rocks."

He gave Raven one last look of friendly concern before setting off again; Raven dropped the chunk of ice to the forest floor and followed, wiping her damp hands on her robe.

It was another half-hour or so before Duncan halted again, peering through the trees. "This way," he said, taking a sharp right, and moments later they stood ankle-deep in grass that brushed soft and cool against Raven's tired legs. The omnipresent trees framed a space perhaps ten paces across; standing in the center afforded a clear view of the sky overhead, streaked pink and orange with clouds catching the light of the setting sun. "We'll stop here for the night," Duncan said, and Raven sank gratefully to the ground, rubbing her aching calves.

Duncan slid the pack from his shoulders and began to pull things out. "Do you need help?" Raven asked belatedly, but he shook his head.

"I can set up camp on my own, thank you. Rest. You look like you need it."

Raven sat back a little uncomfortably, feeling as though she should be helping in any case, but she supposed that without a clear idea of what he was doing, she would only be in the way. Instead she watched his movements, noting how he laid out a stretch of canvas before driving poles into the ground at its corners; they met at the top and forked, and he lashed them together before setting a fifth pole across the forks. Duncan pulled a second piece of canvas over the entire contraption, this one with flaps sewn to the sides, and tied the corners to the bottoms of the poles.

It was almost like magic--he'd started with nothing but sticks and cloth, and moments later a little house stood in the clearing. Raven itched to go closer and examine it, but held back in fear of getting in Duncan's way as he scoured the ground for who-knew-what. Her own peering through the grass showed her nothing but fallen leaves, sticks, and insects--dozens of insects, most of which she'd never encountered before, and her lack of knowledge made her grimace. This morning, she'd known everything about her world; now she didn't even know the name of the beetle crawling along the hem of her robe.

Duncan was hard at work on the other side of the clearing; although Raven couldn't discern his movements in the dimming light, they involved a lot of rustling, the snapping of wood, and the sound of stones clacking against one another. Then, with an odd scraping noise, a shower of sparks illuminated a ring of stones on bare dirt, filled with carefully-stacked sticks. Three more bursts of sparks rasped out, until a tendril of smoke drifted upward and the still air of the clearing filled with the soft crackle of flames devouring the fuel Duncan had laid out.

Raven caught her breath, inching back from the fire, and fiercely reminded herself that this was no threat. This fire hadn't been called into being from anger, seeking her flesh, but for light and warmth as the sun set. It would cook food and heat water, no more.

She crept carefully forward, watching Duncan as set the waterskin beside the rocks and pulled something out of his pack with a dull, metallic _clank_. More rustling, and Raven caught sight of a ball of cloth in his hand, perhaps the size of an apple--then started as Duncan turned to her.

"Would you mind filling this with ice?" he asked, handing over the metal object--a smooth pot of beaten tin. Raven obliged, shaking out her fingers as the cold metal tried to stick to them. "Thank you. That's extremely handy--I usually have to carry more water, or set up beside a stream. We have a lot more options with you around."

"Thank you," Raven said shyly, glad to be useful after feeling like a fool all day, and sat gingerly beside the fire as Duncan set the pot onto a metal tripod in the flames. The ice shrank rapidly, bubbles rising to the surface as the water heated, and Duncan untied the cloth bundle and dropped its contents into the water.

"Trail soup," he said, glancing down at her--had he caught her curious look, lit by the fire? "It doesn't taste like much, but it's hot and filling. You learn to appreciate that when you're out on the road."

Raven nodded, unsure what to say, and the conversation died again as Duncan turned his attention back to the firepit.

Now she'd stopped moving, Raven found herself constantly having to stifle yawns. She was usually awake for hours after the sun had set, but she'd long since used up the energy she'd gained from her lunch, and she'd finished her bread and cheese not long after leaving the inn. With nothing to do, Raven caught herself drifting off, and pinched the inside of her forearm to keep herself awake.

She still jumped as Duncan approached her, a bowl of broth and noodles clutched in his hand. "Eat," he said, a smile in his words. "You look exhausted."

"It's that obvious?" she asked without thinking, and flushed in the dim firelight. "I mean, thank you." She took the bowl from him, its warmth seeping into her chilled fingers, and ate the soup without tasting it.

Raven was so weary she scarcely had the energy to set up the bedroll Duncan handed her, declining his offer of sleeping in the tent--she wanted to be able to hear well, should anything try to sneak up on them. He disappeared within the canvas' shadowed confines. She lay back, her eyes beginning to drift shut--

Stars blazed overhead, covering the sky like a massive dome filled with sparkling light. Raven gasped quietly, one hand moving involuntarily upward, tracing shapes into the air. Fervenial, Silentir, Toth; the constellations she'd read about for years, the ones she'd strained to see through the windows when her studies ran late into the night, glimmered above the campsite in a glorious display. Her fingers trembled as she traced the shape of Visus, the Watchful Eye which had supposedly led Andraste's faithful as they marched north to battle.

_I never thought I would get to see them. Not like this._

The day's pains forgotten, Raven watched the stars until sleep claimed her.

###### 

Raven awoke in the chill morning air with tears frozen to her cheeks. Her travels in the Fade had brought her to dark places, spirits latching onto the emotions Raven had yet to deal with and drawing out scenes she would rather not relive. Ethereal guardians swung at her, throwing her across the frozen room; blood spattered Jowan's hands, black in the green light of the Fade; Cullen's form twisted, taking on the shape of an abomination, a Templar's blade heavy in Raven's hands as Greagoir shouted at her to destroy her friend.

She didn't feel as though she'd slept long--a notion reinforced by the sky, not yet lightening with the advent of dawn--but a soft crackle drew Raven's attention to the smoke already curling in the air from Duncan's fire, its scent crisp in the air. She made a quick, unthinking check of her surroundings before remembering that she no longer had to be wary of traps set by her fellow apprentices, although she'd set up her bedroll uncomfortably close to a spiderweb that glistened with morning dew. The spider, fortunately, wasn't one she recognized as venomous.

As she sat up, Raven pulsed a healing spell through herself, soothing the aches from yesterday's exertions and the soreness from a night on hard ground instead of soft mattress. Hearing quiet footsteps, she turned to see Duncan enter the clearing; a smile twitched his lips as he caught sight of her. "Good morning," he said, voice unroughened by sleep or strain.

Raven ducked her head. "Good morning," she said softly, her own voice even deeper than usual--the healing spell had only been able to do so much. "Are we packing up?"

Duncan nodded, stooping to rummage through his pack. "We made good time yesterday--you helped quite a bit, between your willingness to keep moving and your ice spell--but we'll need to set out soon if we're to get to Ostagar before week's end. The darkspawn skirmishes were growing bolder when I left, and it won't be long before we Wardens are forced to take the offensive alongside King Cailin's army."

He handed Raven the tin pot, which she filled with ice and set gingerly beside the firepit where Duncan had left the waterskin the previous night. She tidied up her bedroll, brushing away leaves and bits of grass, and hung it on the branch beside Duncan's where he'd spread his own to dry. "I have very little experience with practical magic," Raven confessed, not looking at Duncan as she picked little prickly balls from the edge of her blanket. "I'm uncertain what help I would be in battle."

Cloth rustled behind her as Duncan, from the sound of it, began to take down the tent. "I admit, I haven't seen you in battle yet," he said, his voice carrying clearly through the clearing, "but I watched you in a dangerous situation nonetheless, and I've spent time with you since then. You carry yourself well, without giving in to pain or fear. You are willing to sacrifice yourself for others. You are quick to learn, quick to notice, although you could stand to speak up more when things aren't going well--I hope you'll learn to stand up for yourself, in time."

His voice grew louder as his footsteps approached Raven. Duncan stopped behind her, far enough away that she didn't feel uncomfortable. She turned, but couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. He was seeing things in her that didn't exist--he didn't know that everything she did was brought about by fear, that she regretted nearly every decision she'd made yesterday, that even now she was holding back what she knew she was capable of because she was too frightened to use her more powerful abilities. How would being in battle, afraid for her life and the lives of those depending on her, help change that?

She nodded dumbly and slipped away, heading into the trees to relieve herself. _I'll just have to... to _try_. He saved my life. I won't let him get into trouble because the girl he rescued can't handle the life of a Grey Warden. I'll do what he needs me to do._

Well, if she was going to work with her fears, she might as well start big. Raven moved until she was certain she was out of sight from the camp, took a deep breath, and summoned a tiny flame in her outstretched palm.

Her vision blurred at once, and illusory screams--Raven's own screams, from years before--echoed in her mind. Her knees trembled, then buckled, dropping her to the dewy grass below. The flame snuffed out, Raven cutting off its flow of mana in her panic.

She breathed raggedly for a moment, hating her weakness, and splashed her face with icy water warmed in her shaking palm. By the time she returned to the camp, Duncan had finished packing, and Raven's façade was firmly in place again.

They ate a quick meal of dried fruit and nuts, and then Duncan led the way south, Raven following silently behind him through the woods.

_You have a week. Use it to make something of yourself._

###### 

The next two days proceeded much the same, with one small difference: at every opportunity, every time they stopped for a rest, every time Duncan wasn't looking, Raven practiced magic. Back at Kinloch Hold, she'd focused on theory instead of practical application; now she pulled out every spell she knew, coming up with ways it could be used to survive in the wilderness or on a battlefield, working on gathering mana without using her staff as a focus. Ice could be spread across the ground to cause opposing forces to stumble, be formed into a rudimentary projectile or momentary bandage, be concentrated in a single spot to numb a joint or the pain of an injury. A tiny bolt of lightning could travel down a metal blade to force an opponent to drop it, or into metal armor to stun its occupant, or could wake someone dazed so they didn't collapse from shock. A general healing spell could get Raven back on her feet, while a focused one could stop the flow of blood from an injury or knit the edges of a broken bone, keeping her in the fight until she could take the time to heal herself properly.

She scarcely had the energy to eat at night, and fell asleep long before she could see the stars; Duncan always called a halt before it grew dark. Raven's physical and magical exhaustion grew, but she felt herself getting stronger--her muscles and joints were growing accustomed to Duncan's pace, and her magical senses, already strong, sharpened and refined as Raven used them in ways she'd never before thought of. The sounds around her became familiar; she could already identify most of the animals they passed, and she was learning to tell the distance to a source of water by how its echoes changed as she walked by.

Raven was feeling almost confident with herself as the sun began to sink on the afternoon of the fourth day, but this assurance faded as the forest cover thinned. Within half an hour, she found herself standing beside Duncan at the edge of a road, its paving stones worn over the Ages, plants peeking through the cracks.

In her fervor of physical and magical preparation, Raven had almost allowed herself to forget one thing: that once they reached Ostagar, Raven would have to deal with _people_. And no matter how competent she grew at magic, speaking to others was a skill she had never learned, one she had long since resigned herself to knowing she would never master.

"Duncan?" she asked quietly as they walked down the road, feet scraping across broken cobbles. Despite the easier footing on the road, Raven already missed the trees--they had blocked the wind, its sound and movement. She kept having to sweep her hair out of her face and back over her ears, and her long robe billowed in the wind, slowing her steps.

He looked down at her at once. "Yes?"

She faced forward, solemnly looking down the road. A light glowed in the distance, evidence of a populated area as the day wound down. "Will it cause trouble that I am an elf?"

Duncan was quiet for a long moment. "The Grey Wardens take all sorts," he said at last. "You will not be the only elf among our ranks, although you may be the only elven Warden in Ostagar. Your fellow Wardens will have no quarrel with you." He let out a slow breath. "I am sorry, however, that I cannot account for the reactions of the King's soldiers. Many come from noble lines, and have lived for generations with the belief that an elf's place is as a servant, nothing more. It is my hope that your status as a Grey Warden will shield you from the worst of the insults."

Raven swallowed, then nodded. He had confirmed her fears. "Thank you for your honesty," she said.

"I would be doing you a great disservice by concealing the truth from you," he said.

"Still," Raven said, "thank you."

"...You are welcome."

Silence stretched as long as their shadows in the setting sun, and for a time Raven allowed herself to be caught up in the sky's majesty--the expanse to her right began to blaze in brilliant colors, pinks and golds and purples, while to her left it faded to a deep cobalt with tiny, winking lights scattered through it. One of the moons shone, a pale crescent, among the stars. It amazed her to think that this sort of beauty had been over her head forever, and she'd never known it.

What else had she missed, locked up in her tower?

"It's getting late," she said at last, as the golden light of the sun faded from the sky. "Where are we stopping tonight?"

Duncan pointed ahead, toward the light Raven had seen earlier; it shone brighter in the dim light, a beacon to draw them forward. "An outlying farm," he said. "I'm acquainted with the family who lives there, and we can sleep in their barn tonight; it's not always safe to camp by the road. Now we're out of the forest, we'll need to be cautious of bandits--they wouldn't intentionally attack a pair of Grey Wardens, but it's hard to tell who we are in the dark." His tone was wry, and somewhat amused. Had he run afoul of bandits on the way to Kinloch Hold, ones who had quickly come to regret their decision?

Raven frowned. If so, he had apparently come out of the encounter uninjured, but Raven was uncertain how they would fare should someone attack her. While she'd used magic against spiders and spirits and sentinels, Raven had no experience actually attacking _people_ with her abilities. Would she even be able to, or would she flinch away from their cries of pain, be drawn back to the time when she herself had been harmed with magic? She already returned there whenever she tried to use flame. It wouldn't do to find out in the midst of battle that flame wasn't the only thing that affected her so.

_As long as I can fight darkspawn, I can still be of use to the Wardens,_ she told herself firmly. She could only hope that darkspawn, like spirits, were inhuman enough that Raven could fight them without qualms.

She hung back in the dying light as Duncan approached the farmhouse, a small wooden structure like the one Kester lived in. He struck up a quiet conversation with the house's occupants; they sounded happy to see Duncan, and when they asked about how his recruitment had gone, Duncan gestured to Raven and explained that she was wary of strangers. The woman at the door clucked softly, smiling at Raven, who decided it would reflect poorly on the Grey Wardens if she ran off and hid.

_He's letting them see who I am so I can call on them if I need help later,_ she realized, as Duncan beckoned her close enough to be seen but not close enough to carry on a conversation. She ducked her head in gratitude, and his eyes crinkled with a momentary smile before he thanked the farming couple and led Raven into the darkness, their path lit dimly by a lantern the man had handed to Duncan.

"I turned down their offer of dining inside with them--I didn't think you'd be comfortable," he said, opening a small door in the side of a wooden structure larger even than the inn on the banks of Lake Calenhad. It smelled strongly of unfamiliar animals. "Olwen will likely bring something out for us anyway. She hates seeing people go hungry, and I don't think she believes trail food is actually food."

"She may be right about that," Raven murmured as she stepped into the 'barn', startling a laugh out of Duncan. While he'd described trail soup as 'filling but bland', it tasted uncomfortably like dishwater to Raven. _I've been spoiled by the Circle,_ she realized. An odd thought; she'd always before focused on the myriad ways her life had been tainted by the Circle of Magi.

She'd read much about how others lived, particularly the elves in their Alienages, like the one where she'd been born. It hadn't truly sunk in until these past few days, however, that some--perhaps most--people couldn't count on three meals a day, warm rooms and soft beds and more books than they could ever hope to read.

_The Circle does an excellent job of isolating us from the world. Perhaps it's intentional--two or three days shivering in the open, and you start to long for the safety and security you had back in your Tower._

But Raven couldn't go back, even had she wanted to. She would have to become accustomed to a life on the road, and soon.

One half of the interior of the barn lay open; the rest was partitioned off like reading carrels in the library, although these contained animals instead of scholars. Cows, Raven decided, looking them over in the dim lantern-light. She'd read about the creatures, but the books had scarcely prepared her for their size, the deep resonance of their calls, or--she wrinkled her nose--their smell.

"Over here," Duncan said, and she turned from the cows to see him standing beside a wooden ladder that led into darkness above the animal pens. "We'll be sleeping up in the loft. Hand the light up to me, if you would?" he asked, and started up the rungs as soon as Raven took hold of the lantern.

Straining on her toes, Raven scarcely managed to reach high enough to hand the lantern back; once Duncan took hold of it, Raven followed him up the ladder. The smell and sound of the cows was fainter here, blocked by wood and large piles of some kind of dried plant that gleamed yellow in the lanternlight.

He hung the lantern on a hook protruding from the wall. "Be careful--hay is flammable, and it's considered poor manners to burn down the barn someone's lent you to sleep in," he said, setting his pack on the wooden floorboards. "Or, as sometimes happens, the barn you sneaked into to sleep. Most people in other countries follow the Wardens' Right of Conscription--it lets us ask for things such as supplies, not just recruits--but we were banished from Ferelden in the Steel Age, and many around here have forgotten what they owe us." His voice held no bitterness, as Raven might have expected. "It's best not to intrude on people when possible, but when we're fighting darkspawn, we sometimes have to discard politeness."

Raven huddled against one wall, knowing that it would take an enormous need for her to 'discard politeness' and force someone to help her. She could scarcely imagine herself asking even a friendly figure for help as Duncan had tonight.

_You should speak to him,_ she told herself. _You're never going to get better at conversation if you refuse to engage in it._ But it was so difficult to think of what to say to the man who'd saved her life, especially as she still wasn't certain he'd been in the right to do so.

To her slight relief, Duncan's guess about dinner had been correct: the farmer woman came into the barn then, carrying two plates which smelled far better than the cows. She handed the food up to Duncan with a smile. "Make sure your recruit up there eats plenty," the woman said. "Poor thing's nothing but skin and bones." She clucked disapprovingly, smiled at their thanks, then left them be.

Raven accepted her portion of the fried meat and vegetables on warm, fresh bread without comment, but found herself smiling as she ate. It was only a little thing, but these people were far kinder than they needed to be. She hoped they wouldn't be the last kind people she would encounter on this journey.

She surreptitiously licked grease from her fingers as she finished eating, then yawned, feeling exhaustion tugging at her bones. She froze, however, as Duncan turned toward her.

"You've been very quiet, these past several days," he said. "You had a lot of things to ask me when we first met. Have you thought of more questions since then?"

Raven looked down, her cheeks warm. _Speak to him!_ she yelled at herself, and finally gathered her courage.

"You're wrong about me," she finally said, her voice almost quiet enough to be drowned out by the cows' lowing. "You keep saying I'm brave, but I'm not. I'm a coward. That's how I got into this whole mess."

She glanced up to see Duncan raise a curious eyebrow, then dropped her gaze back down to her own lap. He said nothing, and after a hesitant moment, she continued speaking. "I shouldn't have gone along with Jowan's plan. I knew it was a bad idea. The Circle has these safeguards in place for a reason. Even though I didn't know Jowan was a blood mage--and I should have figured that out sooner, but I was too caught up in my studies to pay him much attention, even though he was my friend. My _only_ friend, really." Her eyes stung, and squeezed them shut until she felt more under control. "And once I knew what he was planning, I could have gone to Irving--but I was too afraid to do what I _should_ have done. I didn't want to betray Jowan, so I betrayed Irving and the Circle instead. A _good_ mage would have done what was best for everyone, not just herself."

Raven sniffed quietly, still desperately trying not to cry. Not here, in front of someone she was growing to respect just as much as she had Irving. "And then, once I was caught, I gave up. I was too afraid to face what I'd done, so I decided to let them kill me." Her voice wavered, but she stopped before it could turn into a sob, breathing carefully. "It was the easier option, and I was going to take it. I would be dead without your intervention, but I'm doing little more than dragging you down--I'm not good at hunting, or camping, or even _walking_. I can scarcely conjure water, can't make a fire--"

She cut herself off. Her outburst had come dangerously close to spilling her past to Duncan, and she couldn't afford to dwell on the fire when he needed her help. Biting her lip, she huddled against the wall again, afraid of what Duncan would say now that he knew the truth.

"It sounds to me," Duncan said at last, after apparently ascertaining that Raven was done speaking for now, "that you helped a friend at great personal risk to yourself, but were unwilling to harm others in order to escape the consequences of what you had done."

Raven shook her head. Didn't he see? "I shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place," she said. "Had I been stronger, I wouldn't have agreed to help Jowan do something so risky."

Duncan's voice was amused. "Would you truly not have? If you were given the chance to do things again, knowing all you do now, would you still abandon your friend to be made Tranquil?"

His words shook Raven, and she forced herself to stop wallowing, to look at things logically. _Blood magic is wrong,_ was the first thought. _Why? Because the Chantry says it is? No, it's not simply that--dealing with demons is hazardous. I felt that in my Harrowing. I felt that Jowan wouldn't be able to face a demon like I had. But he did, apparently--_someone_ had to teach him blood magic. Was the demon simply waiting until he left the Tower, to turn him into an Abomination far from the Templars' oversight? Or...._

She recalled certain texts she'd read, ones that the other apprentices had cared little about. Treatises on the magic of Arlathan, the lost city of the elves. _They used blood magic, I'm certain of it. There are notes, records--hard to decipher, but there. And Tevinter uses blood magic as well, and remains standing, a great power, even though their other practices--slavery, sacrifices--are deplorable. But if blood is simply a source of power, like mana, then what is inherently wrong with a mage using her own blood to fuel spells?_

She shook her head--she was getting off-topic, losing herself in research to avoid thinking about what she'd done. _Jowan was my _friend_. He did a lot for me, at cost to himself, and I cared about him. I helped him because I _wanted_ to, not simply because I was too afraid not to._ Raven looked up at last, meeting Duncan's eyes for a moment before shying away. "I would still help him," she said, her voice quiet but firm. "I wouldn't abandon him to his fate, even if it meant losing my life."

Duncan smiled at her. "That's what I thought, when I saw you there," he said. "You obviously cared about the Circle, about its rules, about the people there, but you were unwilling to allow the darker parts of the Circle's politics swallow what you cared about. You'll be a good Warden, Raven, whether you believe it or not. Fighting prowess isn't as important as being willing to sacrifice yourself for others. You can learn to fight. It's much harder to learn when to give up."

Raven's lips twisted into a wry smile. "I'm not a hero, though," she said. "I... after what I've done, I don't feel like I _deserve_ to be one of the legendary Gray Wardens. Aren't heroes supposed to be more... well, _heroic_?"

Duncan's laugh surprised her. "I know exactly how you feel," he said. "But--Raven, you'll be far from the only Warden who has come from an ignoble background. I, myself, was recruited into the Order after accidentally killing one of its members."

Raven looked up in shock. "You--_what_?"

"I was a pickpocket, and attempted to steal from him. He caught me, and I ended up killing him in the ensuing struggle. I was given a choice at my trial--hang for murder, or join the Grey Wardens." Duncan's smile twisted as well. "There were times over that first year when I felt I'd made the wrong choice... but I've done enough good over the years that I feel I've atoned for who I was before I became a Warden. In a way, Duncan the pickpocket _was_ killed, and Raven the Circle mage was executed as well. Our old lives are no more. We've been reborn anew, as Grey Wardens, and it is now our duty to make certain our former selves' mistakes aren't made again... and, while we are at it, to save the world from a threat that no one else can recognize."

He reached a hand out toward Raven, and when she didn't shy away, he patted her gently on the shoulder. "I recruited you because I believed you had made the right decision, even though it was difficult, and I hoped you would be able to do the same for the world should it ask this of you."

Raven reached up tentatively, resting her own hand on his. "I... thank you, Duncan."

"I look forward to working alongside you," he said, smiling softly, then pushed himself to his feet and made his way over to their gear.

Raven sat for a moment, staring off into the dimness at him, scarcely hearing the cows below or the wind outside or Duncan's soft scuffling in the hay. Then she crept forward to retrieve her bedroll, making a silent vow.

Duncan had saved her not only from the Circle, but from _herself_. She would, somehow, return the favor. No matter what the Grey Wardens asked of her, she would give her life to them, and hope that someday she could repay the incredible gift Duncan had handed her.

No matter the consequences, no matter the pain or suffering, no matter the sacrifice, Raven would become the greatest Grey Warden she could be. The little girl who cowered in the Circle was gone. It was time to discover who Raven the Grey Warden was.

Raven fell asleep with her mind still filled with determination. Her dreams that night were, for the first time since she'd left the tower, hopeful.


	5. Ostagar

It took two more days to reach Ostagar.

Raven practiced magic just as hard as she had before, walked just as far, fell asleep just as weary, but the journey felt different now. Before, she had been desperately hoping to not let anyone down. Now, she was determined to prove herself. The contrast may have been slight, but it seemed vast to Raven.

Her relationship with Duncan, too, was evolving. She gathered the courage every now and then to speak with him--asking questions about his life, or the Wardens, or the darkspawn and the previous Blights and the best methods of fighting as a Warden--and soon found herself enjoying their conversations as much as she had once enjoyed speaking to Jowan. _Duncan's voice is certainly nicer,_ she thought wryly once she realized she'd been making the comparison. _I don't think he knows _how_ to whine._

Raven tried not to think of where Jowan might be now.

She was still concerned about meeting the other Wardens, but if any of them were like Duncan, then perhaps Raven would find her place there. Even if the common soldiers disliked her, she had dealt with dislike and worse before. There was little they could do to her that she hadn't already overcome.

With fewer worries to occupy her mind, Raven at last allowed herself to relax as she walked beside Duncan. The world outside the Tower continued to surprise her; while she wasn't pleased by the revelation that the sun was hot enough to burn any skin she left uncovered for more than a few minutes, even as the air about them grew colder, the incredible sights around Raven as she and Duncan left the forest more than made up for the discomfort. Hills rose into the distance, covered in trees rendered miniature by the distance, ending in the enormous snow-capped Frostback Mountains; animals of various shapes and sizes, ones she'd never seen but in books, darted beside the path or grazed in the fields; plants of all descriptions covered the ground like antique rugs, flowers blazing in reds and yellows and purples.

Duncan seemed amused at her wide-eyed observations, chuckling as she asked probing questions about everything they passed. "You remind me of a friend, a fellow Warden," he told her once, as she stopped to heal an ankle she'd twisted in a hole--perhaps the home of a burrowing animal--while distracted by the sight of fruit growing on dozens of trees behind a wooden fence alongside the road. "She, too, was an elf from the Circle--Montsimmard, if I remember correctly--although she did live in the city before her powers were discovered. When we first came to Ferelden together, she was _fascinated_ by the wide-open spaces here... although I believe she would have frozen anyone who dared comment on it." His voice, beneath the amusement, held a surprisingly sad note--had something happened to his friend? Raven knew the life of a Warden must be dangerous.

"Thank you," she said at last, uncertain of what else to say.

They made camp beside the road that night; few people ventured this close to the cold Korcari Wilds. Raven pointed out her favorite constellations to Duncan, picking them out of the vast expanse of stars. It was incredible how many she could see when her view wasn't limited by a dusty window. Every now and then, a star streaked across the sky in a flash, a natural display of wonder.

It was nearly midday on the sixth day out of the Circle when Duncan slowed their pace. Raven, startled, looked up from the ice sculpture she'd been meticulously shaping in one palm--a rage demon, surging forward as though attacking a tiny ice foe. It was a little lumpy and misshapen, as she wasn't much of an artist, but that wasn't the point; Raven was simply trying to make her spell more precise, to add ice only where she intended it to go.

"Is something wrong--" she began, and cut herself off, gaping at the landscape before her.

The often treeless plain they'd been traversing came to an end perhaps a half-mile ahead as the road led through an archway set into walls of weathered white stone. The stones' curved lines were uncomfortably familiar to Raven; the walls had obviously been shaped by magic, created by the ancient magisters of the Tevinter Empire who had once ruled Ferelden, just as they had created Kinloch Hold and the long-abandoned Imperial Highway. The walls encircled what looked--from where Raven and Duncan stood on slightly higher ground--to be a camp nestled within the ancient ruins. Lofty, crumbling stone towers held up by sweeping buttresses stood beside new wooden fortifications; tents and banners flapped in the breeze, set up against ramparts whose sides were decorated with long-cold scorch marks.

She recognized the ruins, had seen drawings of what they'd looked like at the height of the Tevinter Empire's hold on the land. "Ostagar," she breathed, scarcely noticing Duncan's approving nod as she followed him down the hill toward the ruin, dropping the chunk of ice and wiping her hands on her robe.

Duncan led her through the archway, down a long courtyard paved not with cobbles but with a single stretch of carved stone. The wall to their right stretched far above Raven--standing atop the wall would likely put her as high as the sixth floor of Kinloch Hold. On the left, a steep, tree-lined slope led down to a valley far below. No one stopped their progress, although Raven knew there were lookouts; the muted sounds of metal armor shifting against stone sounded occasionally from above her as she walked. It seemed Duncan and his guest were expected.

The dull _clangs_ of metal-shod feet, several pairs of them, echoed through a second archway as Raven and Duncan approached. Raven resisted the urge to hide behind Duncan in apprehension, instead taking in the fantastic appearance of the man who led a small group of soldiers toward them. _A welcoming party?_

The man's skin was as pale as his shoulder-length blond hair. His flawless armor gleamed like gold, set off with accents of some much darker metal. His breastplate was shaped like the head of a dragon; it, like his pauldrons and gauntlets, was ornate to the point of uselessness, as was the hilt of the blade which hung at his waist. Ceremonial armor? Was this man a figurehead of some kind, meant to look impressive but not to fight? In contrast, the guards with him wore simpler, battle-scarred suits of steel and chain.

Raven would have expected such an obviously important man to look stern--based, she admitted, solely on her experiences with Greagoir and other high-ranking Templars--but instead a wide grin spread across his face as Duncan stepped up to him. "Ho there, Duncan!" the man said; his voice was higher than Raven had expected from his height and bulk, with a pompous edge nearly hidden by laughter.

Duncan extended his hand to the man, sounding stunned as he said, "King Cailan?"

Raven's heart twisted, and she abruptly found it difficult to breathe. She'd been preparing herself to meet a high-ranking soldier, perhaps even a noble, but the _king_!? She was at once aware that her clothing was stained with sweat and dirt from the week of hard travel, that her hair was mussed and the tip of one of her ears was visible, that she hadn't managed to get all the weeds from the hem of her robe--which was growing ragged from catching on underbrush in the forest. _I shouldn't be here,_ she thought, panic rising. _I'm just an elf, the King won't want to see me, he'll think I'm a servant or a plaything or--_ She forced herself to stay in place through sheer will, standing as tall and straight as she could manage, and smoothed her face into her calmest façade. She couldn't control her clothing, or her race, but she _could_ control her bearing.

"I didn't expect--" Duncan began, but the King cut him off with a casual wave of his hand.

"A royal welcome?" the King said, still grinning; the laugh in his voice was even stronger now. "I was beginning to worry you'd miss all the fun!"

Duncan shook his head. "Not if I could help it, your Majesty." He didn't sound amused, but nor did he sound upset. His tone held just enough formality to keep the conversation from sounding like an exchange between equals.

The King tossed his head. "Then I'll have the mighty Duncan at my side in battle after all! Glorious!" This last word was said in a tone of ridiculously pompous cheer.

And then he turned his gaze to Raven, and she forgot how to breathe. It was all she could do to keep standing despite her instincts screaming at her to _hide_. "The other Wardens told me you've found a promising new recruit," he said, the words thoughtful but--Raven thought, through her panic--not disbelieving. "I take it this is she?"

Raven tried to say something, _anything_, but couldn't get herself to move. Duncan, ever observant, apparently noticed. "Allow me to introduce you," he said smoothly, his voice comforting Raven just a little.

The King, however, waved aside Duncan's words. "No need to be so formal, Duncan," he said easily. "We'll be shedding blood together, after all." And then he stepped directly up to Raven--not close enough to send her into a complete panic, but close enough to make it clear that he was speaking to her and her alone. "Ho there, friend!" he said, adding bemusement to the roiling mix of emotions in Raven's mind. He sounded just as he had when he'd greeted Duncan--as though Raven actually _was_ his friend, despite being nothing more than an elven mage. "Might I know your name?"

Raven somehow managed a deep nod--if she tried anything more, she was certain she would topple over--and, her voice deep and quiet and smooth from years of practice, said, "I am Raven, your Majesty."

He grinned down at her, and despite herself Raven felt her panic begin to ebb. "Pleased to meet you!" It sounded like he actually _was_. Had Raven been worrying for no reason? Perhaps things weren't so bad outside the Tower as she'd always been told. "The Grey Wardens are desperate to bolster their numbers, and I, for one, am glad to help them. I understand you hail from the Circle of Magi--I trust you have some spells to help us in the coming battle?"

Again, no ill will. He sounded _glad_ that Duncan had managed to recruit a mage. Raven swallowed hard, and admitted--she couldn't bring herself to mislead this unexpectedly enthusiastic man--"I'm only recently out of my apprenticeship, your Majesty."

The King shrugged. "Your abilities are still above those of other folk. That the Grey Wardens have recruited you says much."

_Well, he certainly has a good opinion of the _Wardens_\--perhaps that's why he seems to like me,_ Raven thought. Whatever the reason, it was oddly comforting. Perhaps the Wardens' reputation would help her in future, as well.

"Allow me to be the first to welcome you to Ostagar," the King continued. "The Wardens will benefit greatly with you in their ranks."

Raven looked down, finally able to break her gaze free of the King's. "You're too kind, your Majesty," she murmured, hard-learned lessons from her childhood crowding her thoughts. _Be polite when speaking to someone important. Don't be direct. Don't question. Don't let them see how you really feel._

The direction of the King's voice changed slightly when next he spoke, angling toward Duncan while still including Raven. "I'm sorry to cut this short, but I should return to my tent. Loghain waits eagerly to bore me with his strategies." This last was said in a voice that Raven was certain had been accompanied by a roll of the royal eyes.

"Your uncle sends his greetings," Duncan said--hopefully freeing Raven from the King's scrutiny, although she didn't quite dare check, "and reminds you that Redcliffe forces could be here in less than a week."

The King laughed; when he shifted in his gleaming armor, it scraped together with sharp, metallic sounds that hurt Raven's ears. "Eamon just wants in on the glory. We've won three battles against these monsters, and tomorrow should be no different."

_Tomorrow?_ Raven thought, the word circling in her jumbled mind. _There will be a battle _tomorrow_? Will I be expected to fight, or will Duncan leave me behind until I'm better trained? Perhaps they won't need me--the King says there won't be a problem._ "You sound very confident of that," someone said, and after a horrified moment Raven realized that she'd spoken aloud without meaning to, caught up in her thoughts.

To her intense relief, the King merely laughed again, and Raven, from the corner of one eye, saw him sweep a gleaming gauntlet in a broad gesture. "_Over_confident, some would say. Right, Duncan?"

Duncan sighed. "Your Majesty, I'm not certain the Blight can be ended as... quickly as you might wish."

"I'm not even sure this is a true Blight," the King said, waving a dismissive hand and pacing restlessly before Duncan. "There are plenty of darkspawn on the field, but alas, we've seen no sign of an Archdemon." He said this last in a petulant tone, very un-royal--or, at least, _Raven_ thought royalty shouldn't be petulant.

"Disappointed, your Majesty?" Duncan asked, and Raven was relieved to note that he, too, sounded disapproving of the King's eagerness.

"I'd hoped for a war like in the tales," the King sighed. "A king riding with the fabled Grey Wardens against a tainted god! But I suppose this will have to do."

That was the moment Raven decided one thing: the King may have been oddly kind, and unexpectedly good-humored, but he was also a _twit_. _Imagine _wishing_ for a Blight to befall your populace, covering the skies with blackened clouds and spreading pestilence across the land, simply so you could ride in as a hero and defeat it!_ Either the man was utterly self-centered, or he had never considered that a Blight meant more than just facing monsters instead of soldiers on the field of battle.

The King inhaled sharply as though about to continue in this ill-considered vein, but to Raven's relief he cut himself off, letting out his breath in a sigh. "I must go before Loghain sends out a search party. Farewell, Grey Wardens!" As Raven and Duncan bowed, he waved, then turned away.

Raven raised her head as the man marched his squad of soldiers back through the archway from whence they'd come and across the courtyard beyond. They retreated, armored footsteps ringing across a long stone bridge toward the encampment barely visible on the other side, and Raven finally let herself relax. The King's mere _presence_ had been enough to keep her on edge, despite his friendly manner.

Duncan smiled wryly down at Raven, raising an eyebrow, as though he understood how she felt. "What the King said is true," he admitted. "We've won several battles against the darkspawn here."

"Yet you don't sound very reassured," Raven noted, finding her voice again at last.

Shaking his head, Duncan gestured her forward, and spoke as they, too, walked toward the bridge. "Despite the victories so far, the darkspawn horde grows larger with each passing day. By now, they look to outnumber us." He sounded frustrated. "I _know_ there is an Archdemon behind this. But I cannot ask the King to act solely on my feeling."

"Why not?" Raven asked; she slowed her steps, now she and Duncan were out of the sentries' earshot. She wasn't certain she wanted this conversation to be overheard. "He seems to regard the Grey Wardens highly."

"Yet not enough to wait for reinforcements from the Grey Wardens of Orlais," Duncan said, stopping beside her. "He believes having the legendary Wardens in his ranks makes him invulnerable."

_A fool indeed,_ Raven thought, her own frustration rising as well. How had a man who'd been raised by King Maric--the man who had helped take Ferelden back from the nearly hundred-year occupation by Orlais--managed to remain so ignorant of the realities of war? Raven had only secondhand experience from historical texts, but even she knew the incipient Blight was a precarious situation.

"The Wardens' numbers in Ferelden are too few," Duncan said. "We must do what we can, and look to Teyrn Loghain's troops to make up the difference."

_So... I _will_ be expected to join the battle tomorrow, if we have so few Wardens,_ Raven thought, dismayed. She would have to ask Duncan to find her a good defensive position, where she could cast without worrying about being overrun by darkspawn.

Duncan's mouth twisted, then he gazed off into the distance beyond the bridge. "To that end, we should proceed with the Joining ritual without delay."

_Another ritual?_ Duncan hadn't spoken of this before. Frost began to creep across the stones at Raven's feet; memories of her Harrowing were all too fresh in her mind. If something so terrible as the Harrowing was required simply for a mage to prove herself, what manner of task would make her into a legend? "What do you need me to do?" she asked softly, grateful to hear that she'd managed to keep her voice free of crack or tremor.

"I will need some time to prepare, an hour at the least," Duncan said, beginning to walk again. Raven hurried to match his pace. "You may wish to take this chance to rest from our journey. There is another Grey Warden in the camp by the name of Alistair; I would like you to seek him out and tell him it's time to summon the other recruits." He stopped at the head of the bridge. "Should you need me, you may find me at the Grey Warden tent on the other side of this bridge."

_Seek out Alistair,_ Raven repeated, nodding firmly as she committed the name to memory. _And... he's leaving me _alone_?_ She looked up at Duncan, unsure, but he simply smiled again and then stepped forward, walking across the bridge without another glance back at his newest recruit.

Raven watched him go, dumbfounded. She had somehow never expected this--to be left to her own devices, with no minder to watch her for unauthorized use of magic. She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't been under observation; her entire life had been marked by the mistrustful gazes of Templars, as though each one expected her to become an abomination the moment their backs were turned. And even when they weren't in sight, Raven had never been alone; there had always been someone there, an instructor or her fellow students or the Chantry sisters.

Some of the other apprentices had been skilled at finding hidden places, disappearing for a quarter-hour at a time with someone special--an activity which many of their instructors had allowed with amusement. Raven, however, had never felt the mysterious pull that seemed to come over her fellows. She sought only the hours she spent in the library, studying quietly in a dark corner behind stacks of arcane tomes, Jowan keeping watch in case any of Raven's tormentors came by. Even then, the Templars hadn't been far off.

_Duncan must truly trust me,_ she thought, and the idea was humbling.

Duncan had told her to rest, but she wasn't certain how much rest she would get in the camp, where there would be sound and movement and _people_ everywhere. She hesitated for only a moment before her curiosity got the best of her, and she set off back the way they'd come. The ruins had looked fascinating--or, at least, the glimpses she'd got of them as she walked through had been truly impressive.

Raven spent a delightful quarter-hour exploring the crumbling walls and towers, marvelling at the magical craftsmanship that had gone into the creation of the fort. The architecture was not only functional, but decorative: every wall bore carved scrollwork, and every pillar was topped with a flared octagonal capital. The arches overhead curved to elegant points that could only have been shaped by magic--surely no mundane means could have raised the delicate structures to such heights without them collapsing. Shiny domed-roof buildings jutted from the base of the wall; the copper domes had perhaps once shone, though their details were now almost obscured by a dull green patina. Even the stone beneath Raven's feet was carved into geometric designs wherever the earth hadn't spread to reclaim the ruins.

She passed a few soldiers as she wandered, and shied away from each; she couldn't forget Duncan's words nor her own conclusions, and although she'd carefully arranged her hair to hide her ears, she feared a stray gust of wind would set it awry again. The soldiers, in turn, seemed content to leave her alone.

Once she'd finally calmed herself, Raven gathered her courage and took her first steps across the bridge to the Ostagar camp.

The bridge, too, was a marvel of engineering, longer across than Kinloch Hold was wide. Statues of armored humans stood evenly spaced along its length; bright yellow banners, blazoned with green hounds rampant, flapped in the breeze above the statues' stone heads. Raven peered over the low wall on one side of the bridge, taking in the wooded valley below, snow clinging to the branches of the trees. The view was dizzying--Raven had never before been able to look _down_ such a height. Kinloch Hold tapered as it neared the top, so even leaning as close as possible to the windows had shown little but the sides of the Tower, and distances in the Fade were muddled by fog.

She pulled away, assuring herself the stone was firm beneath her feet before she continued walking. The sight of a crumbled section of the bridge, like a giant bite had been taken out of the stone, was far from reassuring.

Raven had almost reached the other end of the bridge before she realized it was guarded: a sandy-haired man in leather and scale, sword at his waist and shield strapped to his back, watched her approach. She faltered, but kept walking, not wanting to seem reluctant to meet him. _Presence is everything,_ she thought, remembering the foolish King.

To her relief, as she moved closer, she realized that the man's expression was pleasant. He raised a hand as Raven reached him. "Hail! You must be the Grey Warden recruit that Duncan brought." His voice, a light tenor, was faintly nasal. He smiled. "This place hasn't seen such bustle in centuries, I'd wager. Need a hand getting anywhere?"

Raven clasped her hands behind her back. "I'm to look for a Grey Warden named Alistair," she said.

The soldier nodded. "Most of your fellows are in the valley with the army, but the recruits are staying here in the King's camp for now. Your tents are just ahead, past the royal encampment to the left--but Alistair, you said? Try heading north. I think he was sent with a message to the mages." He jerked a thumb to his left, Raven's right.

Raven nodded. "Thank you," she said, and the soldier gave her another disarming smile and let her through into the camp.

It was just as busy--and _noisy_\--as she'd feared. Wooden fortifications guarded groups of colorful tents; the tent just ahead, in green and yellow just as the banners on the bridge, was no doubt where King Cailan sat in conference with Teyrn Loghain even now. Soldiers sparred at the top of a ramp behind the royal encampment, their shouts and the _clang_ of metal painfully loud, and Raven moved hurriedly away, edging cautiously around the King's tent.

The barking of dogs drew Raven's attention to wooden kennels to her right, at the base of a raised platform. Before her was another archway, this one gated, beyond which the trees of the Wilds were visible. Raven made her way nervously up a ramp past the kennels toward the raised area, finding several tents marked with the sunburst of the Chantry surrounding a makeshift infirmary at the top--soldiers lay on cots, unconscious or groaning in pain. One kept muttering about 'the taint'.

She saw no mages attending the wounded, only Chantry Sisters--an oversight, in Raven's opinion. She might have gone to help, but the sight of the Sisters deterred her. The last thing she needed was for them to start screeching about her using magic without permission.

Still, she hesitated, her fingers itching to soothe the soldiers' pain, but her attention was drawn away as a man's voice, young and tremulous, called out from behind her. "Ho! Young lady!"

She turned warily, and caught sight of a soldier waving at her. Clad in splintmail, a sheathed greatsword at his waist, he was considerably taller and bulkier than she, with a soft, pink face and close-cropped red hair. He smiled down at her as she approached, his lips quivering slightly. "Greetings. You must be the third recruit we've heard about."

Raven blinked, startled by his accurate identification of her, but reason quickly asserted itself. _Duncan said he'd sent word,_ she recalled, _and it probably isn't difficult to spot the tiny, black-haired girl in mages' robes._ "Yes, I am Raven," she confirmed.

He gestured to himself, another nervous motion. How scared _was_ this man? And of what? "Ser Jory is my name," he said formally. "I hail from Redcliffe, where I served as knight under the command of Arl Eamon."

Ser Jory wet his lips, then glanced down at Raven and away. "I wasn't aware elves could join the Grey Wardens," he confessed. "Those camped in the valley are all human."

_Yes, Duncan warned me I'd be the only elf,_ Raven thought, blanking her expression and resisting the urge to smooth her windblown hair over her ears again; Ser Jory's nervous gestures made her want to fidget as well. The man's voice wasn't condemning, though, just curious. "Do you have a problem with me?" she asked, surprised by her own boldness--but if one of her fellow recruits disliked her kind, it was best she get to the heart of the matter before his feelings toward her had time to fester.

To Raven's relief, Ser Jory shook his head. "No. Clearly, the Grey Wardens pick their recruits on their merits." He smiled tremulously. "I hope we're both lucky enough to make it through this 'Joining'. Is it not thrilling to be given that chance?"

Raven nodded, and found a smile tugging at the corners of her own lips. Ser Jory was surprisingly disarming--oddly, his own awkwardness served to make Raven feel much less awkward. "I'm curious about the Joining ritual," she said, and now it was Ser Jory's turn to nod.

"As am I. Has anyone told you about it?" The words were earnest and hopeful.

"Only that it's dangerous," Raven said, shrugging and neatly hiding her apprehension. Ser Jory had enough for the both of them.

He shifted from foot to foot. "No one ever told me of such a ritual. I had no idea there were more tests after getting recruited." Fresh from her Harrowing, Raven had a hard time feeling sympathy for this. Ser Jory sighed then, glancing up at the sky. "I suppose since you're here at last, I'd best get back to Duncan. I shall see you there." He bowed formally, gave Raven one last weak smile, and moved down a different ramp from the one Raven had used to reach the infirmary.

_What an odd man,_ Raven thought, glancing back at the infirmary; one of the Chantry Sisters was eyeing her suspiciously, and she decided to escape before the woman decided to act on her suspicions. Raven stepped down the same ramp Ser Jory had used, heart beginning to hammer as she caught sight of figures in robes similar to her own among the purple tents below. _I was supposed to look for the Circle's encampment to find this Alistair,_ she reminded herself, but it still took all her courage to approach the robed mages.

A sharp voice broke her concentration as she stepped forward. "You there! Elf!" a man called, imperious tone tinged with a rural accent. Raven winced--she'd forgotten to hide her ears after speaking with Ser Jory. Apprehensive, she turned to see a man glaring at her from among a jumble of boxes, bags, and chests beside the ramp. A sign at his side, pounded into the ground, had the word 'Quartermaster' burned into the wood. "Where is my armor?" the man asked, sounding peeved. "And why are you dressed so preposterously?"

Resentment rose within Raven, and she hurriedly smothered the emotion, as always, before it could manifest... then hesitated. The man had obviously mistaken her for a servant, and her usual reserved demeanor had likely contributed to his false impression. But if she was to become a Grey Warden--to succeed at whatever task she was set for her Joining, to battle darkspawn and to repay Duncan for all he'd done for her--then Raven needed to discard her former habit of inobtrusiveness, of appearing small and unimportant in the hope that no one would bother her. She would need to become strong, to believe in _herself_.

So she straightened her posture, unhooking her staff from where it had hung--almost forgotten--at her back. She planted it against the stones at her feet, regarding the man with the flattest look she could manage. "Perhaps," she said, her voice quiet but cold and firm, "because I am here to become a Grey Warden?"

To the man's credit, it didn't take him long to realize how thoroughly he'd misjudged Raven. His face paled, and when he next spoke, his voice was almost as quavery as Ser Jory's. "You're... oh! Yes, of course!" His eyes darted from side to side, as though looking for an escape. "I... please forgive my rudeness! There are so many elves running about, and I've been waiting for... it's simply been so hectic! I never thought... P-please pardon my terrible manners! I... I am just the quartermaster, a simple man, no one special..." He trailed off, and Raven almost felt sorry for the man. After all, he hadn't created the prejudices; he'd simply learned them with everyone else. Castigating him would harm more than it helped.

Still... "Perhaps you should treat your servants more kindly," she suggested, allowing her stern façade to soften slightly.

"Y-yes, of course. You're very right," the man said, stumbling over his words, and hurriedly moved off to check something in one of his boxes. Raven, slumping, let him go--standing up for herself was more draining than she'd expected.

She stiffened again, though, as a clap sounded to her left; she turned to see a swarthy young man in dark leathers, daggers at his belt, applauding her slowly. "Excellent show," he said, his voice cheeky, and Raven stilled a blush with a burst of frost. He seemed the type who would enjoy making a girl blush. She folded her arms, staff still clutched in her right hand, and glared as his eyes travelled down her form and back up. "Well, you're not what I thought you would be," the young man said at last, a hint of mirth still in his voice.

Raven raised an eyebrow. "What did you _think_ I'd be?" she asked flatly.

He shot her a smile that was almost a smirk. "Not an elf. Yet here you are." He gave her an exaggerated bow. "The name's Daveth. It's about bloody time you came around--I was beginning to think we'd never get to start this 'ritual'."

Something about the way he said the word 'ritual' was intriguing. "What do you know about the Joining?" she asked, allowing her voice to thaw a little.

He leaned back against the side of the ramp, crossing his arms _and_ his ankles. The pose made him look as though he was about to fall at any moment, but somehow he remained upright. "I happened to be sneaking around camp last night, see," he said in an exaggeratedly conspiratorial whisper, "and I heard a couple of Grey Wardens talking. So I listened in for a bit. _I'm_ thinking they plan to send us into the Wilds."

_What?_ was Raven's first thought, but the wisdom of such a trial came quickly to her--if, indeed, Daveth was correct about the 'Joining'. Duncan had said the Wilds were filled with darkspawn; sending a new recruit out to see how she fared against the monsters before making her into a full Warden was reasonable. It wouldn't do to induct someone only to find that she couldn't handle battling darkspawn. _I hope my magic practice will help,_ Raven thought, hiding her growing nervousness. After all, it wasn't as though she'd never been in a battle before. Could the darkspawn truly be more horrifying than Rage or Pride?

"Into the Wilds," she said musingly, and Daveth nodded in encouragement.

"Miles and miles of savage country," he said, still smiling. Was this obnoxiousness his way of dealing with nerves? It seemed healthier than Ser Jory's twitchiness, at least. "My home village isn't far, and I grew up on tales about the Wilds. Even been in there a few times... scary place." This last was said in an almost teasing tone, as though he were trying to get Raven to react. It would take far more than his words, though, to unnerve her.

"Why _are_ the Wilds so frightening?" she asked instead.

Daveth's eyebrows rose; perhaps her unconcern had actually made an impression on him. "Cannibals, beasts, witches," he said easily, "and now darkspawn? What isn't to be scared of?" He huffed. "All this secrecy around the Joining's too much for me. Makes my nose twitch."

He gave a dramatic sigh, and Raven allowed his antics a faint smile. He grinned back. "I guess we'll have to wait and see. Not like we have a choice."

His tone was surprisingly bitter. "You don't want to be here?" Raven found herself asking, startled.

Daveth shrugged. "I got nowhere else to go, after what Duncan saved me from." He scratched idly at one arm. "And speaking of Duncan, I expect it's time to get back to him. That's where I'll be, if you happen to need me for anything." He winked, then untangled himself and headed off the same direction Ser Jory had gone--south, away from where Raven had been told to find Alistair.

The camp seemed much _quieter_ without Daveth. Sighing in relief, Raven turned about, reorienting herself and hiding a smile as the quartermaster quickly pretended he hadn't been looking at her.

Now that she wasn't deep in conversation with someone, she could hear a low hum with her magical senses. She turned, quickly finding the source of the sound: a half-dozen mages stood evenly spaced about a glowing bowl in the center of the Circle's tents, their forms shimmering oddly--they looked almost unreal. Raven recognized the signs: they had sent their spirits into the Fade, just as Raven had during her Harrowing. _Did I look like that, while I was fighting the demons?_ Raven wondered. The mages' bodies didn't move, which was a relief. She'd still been half-afraid the Templars had been able to watch everything she did.

Speaking of Templars, Raven caught sight of two standing by a gap in the tents, intently watching the mages. She swallowed hard, hurriedly moving to where they couldn't see her.

A loud voice from the south caught her attention, the words in the familiar cadence of the Chant of Light; a glance showed her a wooden platform upon which a Chanter stood, preaching to a few scattered worshippers. _North, then,_ she thought, wanting nothing to do with the Chantry. _It's time I find this Alistair._

Raven made her way up another ramp, into a stone building with no roof; the sole room within was easily twice the length of the library in Kinloch Hold, its carved stone floor mostly free of earth and plants--at this end, at least. Toward the east, the ground sloped up past broken pillars and wooden fortifications. A massive wooden table stood just before the slope, bare save for a few sheets of paper, and Raven was startled to see elves gathered there, their whispered voices not quite carrying to Raven's ears.

She hesitated, half-wanting to go to them, but something held her back. She'd rarely had the chance to speak with her own kind, and was uncertain how they would see her. Would she be considered a traitor, for living among humans almost as an equal? Or would they show her the same deference they showed the humans in the camp? Neither reaction was pleasant to contemplate.

Seeing no one there who looked to be a Grey Warden, Raven turned instead to one final ramp at the western edge of the room, just beside the entryway. Voices filtered down from the circular tower above, and Raven took a deep breath before stepping onto the ramp.


	6. Alistair

As Raven stepped up the ramp toward the circular tower, the conversation therein became clearer. One voice, to her surprise, was vaguely familar; as the ramp curved, it afforded a view of a lofty, open tower shaped by pillars of white stone, and Raven caught sight of a man standing, arms folded, facing away from her. He had dark brown hair and light brown skin, and wore a mage's robe; Raven recognized him at once as a man who'd passed his Harrowing a good half-dozen years back. Gilbert, she thought his name was. Raven hadn't really seen him since his Harrowing, but she wrinkled her nose, recalling him as pompous and irritatingly certain of his own importance.

"--_now_? Haven't you Grey Wardens asked _enough_ of the Circle?" Gilbert asked testily, his tone just as annoyed as Raven remembered.

Another man, standing across from him, came into view as Raven reached the top of the ramp; clad in splintmail that shone despite a number of dings and scratches, with short blond hair worn swept back and a sun-browned face, he shifted uneasily at Gilbert's words. "I simply came to deliver a message from the Revered Mother, ser mage. She desires your presence."

Raven's steps slowed, still a good dozen feet from the... argument, she supposed. The second man's voice was _wonderful_. Rich, almost... buttery, or perhaps like caramel sauce--smooth and sweet. Despite his apparent discomfiture, there was an edge of humor to his words, as though he were ready to break into laughter at any moment--not deprecating laughter like she would expect from someone like Daveth, but something genuine.

_Surely it wouldn't hurt for me to stop and listen for a moment,_ she thought, and then reality sank in. Gilbert had called this man a Grey Warden.

_Could this be Alistair?_

Raven scrutinized the armored man as Gilbert scoffed in exasperation. "What her Reverence 'desires' is of no concern to me! I am busy helping the Grey Wardens--by the King's orders, I might add!" He tossed his head haughtily with this last statement, as though certain the Warden speaking to him would be impressed by the information.

Instead, maybe-Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Should I have asked her to write a note?" The laughter in his voice was stronger now, as though he enjoyed goading his conversational companion.

Gilbert looked angry enough to spit, if doing so wouldn't be considered extremely undignified. "Tell her I will not be harassed in this manner!"

Maybe-Alistair cocked his head, the picture of innocence, and spoke in a lazy drawl that stretched out his words. "Yes, _I_ was harassing _you_ by delivering a message." Despite herself, Raven found she had to stifle a laugh at the raw sarcasm in his voice. She might have held some sympathy for Gilbert--if the Revered Mother had sent someone with a message for _Raven_, she would also have been upset, though likely not so acerbic toward a simple messenger--but... she'd wanted to speak to Gilbert like that for _years_, although she had always lacked the courage. Witnessing him on the receiving end of even this mild ribbing was oddly satisfying.

"Your glibness does you no credit," Gilbert huffed.

The Grey Warden sighed, running a hand through his blond hair and setting it on end. "Here I thought we were getting along so well," he said. "I was even going to name one of my children after you... the _grumpy_ one." He finally cracked a smile, the left side of his mouth tugging upward farther than the right.

Raven hastily smoothed her face as Gilbert thrust his hands upward in exasperation. "Enough! I will speak to the woman if I must! Get out of my way, _fool_." He stormed past the Grey Warden, nearly knocking Raven aside in his rush to leave the tower. She stepped hastily out of the way, then froze as the Grey Warden caught sight of her.

He smiled, slow and disarming, and Raven breathed again. "You know," the Warden said, stepping toward Raven with a grin, his voice warm as morning sunlight, "one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together."

_Andraste preserve me, this man is smooth,_ Raven thought, caught so off-guard by the comment that she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. "You are a _very_ strange human."

She felt like kicking herself--what manner of reply was _that_!? Still, the Grey Warden laughed. "You're not the first to tell me that," he said, then peered closer at her, causing Raven's pulse to speed up. Had he only now noticed he was speaking to an elf? Duncan had told her the Grey Wardens wouldn't care, and neither of the other recruits had, but what if this man was different? Or had he mistaken her for a servant, and--"Wait, we haven't met, have we? I don't suppose you happen to be another mage?"

Raven, not exactly reassured, glanced down at her robes, then at the staff still in her hand. "I am indeed a mage," she said, bemused. Wait, what if he accepted elves, but didn't like _mages_? _The worst that's likely to happen is he insults you,_ Raven reminded herself, though her fingers still tightened on her staff as she prepared for a conflict.

But to her surprise, he _blushed_. "Really? You don't look like a mage--uh... that is... I mean... how, um, interesting." He rubbed the back of his neck with one gauntleted hand, his gaze darting about so he didn't have to look at Raven. She was entirely baffled by his reaction. _Is he perhaps just as bad at conversation as I am?_ He'd seemed confident enough while speaking to Gilbert, but...

The Grey Warden's eyes widened, and he finally met her gaze, looking oddly chagrined. "Wait, I _do_ know who you are," he said, contrition in his tone. "You're Duncan's new recruit, from the Circle of Magi. I should have recognized you right away--I apologize."

Raven nodded automatically, accepting his apology. Her brow furrowed. "How could you recognize me?" she asked. How specific, precisely, had Duncan's description been? Ser Jory had also recognized her, but Daveth had claimed he hadn't known she was an elf.

A bit of the lopsided smile from earlier returned to the Grey Warden's face. "Duncan sent word," he explained. "He spoke quite highly of you."

Raven bit her lip, feeling a flush rise in her cheeks. It was going to take her a long time to feel worthy of Duncan's praise. She wondered again just what Duncan had told the other Wardens--had he mentioned _anything_ about the circumstances under which Raven had been recruited, or had he simply skimmed over that part of the story, as he had when speaking to Kester on the boat? _How would this man react if he knew everything I'd done?_

The Warden cleared his throat, straightening his posture and smoothing his hair back down. "Allow me to introduce myself," he said, although the formality in his tone couldn't quite hide the humor. "I'm Alistair, the newest Grey Warden... though I guess you knew that." Raven hadn't, precisely, but she'd certainly suspected it. _The 'newest' Grey Warden? How recently was he recruited?_ "As the junior member of the Order," he continued, his voice wrenching Raven's thoughts back to him, "I'll be accompanying you when you prepare for the Joining."

_'Prepare'--so going into the Wilds _isn't_ the Joining? Or--I'll find out soon enough. Introductions first, _then_ speculations._ "I'm pleased to meet you," she said, and for once the words were true. "My name is Raven."

"Right, _that_ was what Duncan told us," Alistair mused, and nodded faintly, as though committing Raven's name to memory. His lopsided smile broadened; he had a dimple in one cheek, Raven noticed a bit distractedly. "You know, it just occurred to me that there have never been many women in the Grey Wardens. I wonder why that is?" His words were faintly teasing, but kind--and, with a jolt, Raven realized she recognized the tone of his voice. She'd heard it often--almost always directed at other people--and it usually meant....

She felt an odd flutter in her stomach. In her experience, that tone indicated... _flirting_.

A surge of boldness flared in Raven's chest, and she rose to his challenge. "You want more women in the Wardens, do you?" she asked, allowing just a bit of Alistair's flirtatious tone to slip into her own words.

His grin deepened, and Raven felt an answering smile tug at her own lips. "Would that be so terrible?" he asked, his voice growing huskier.

The reality of the situation suddenly hit Raven--that she was discarding the instincts that had kept her safe over the years, the ones she'd painstakingly put into place since she was seven years old. Her smile faltered, and she took a half-step back, her heartbeat painfully quick in her chest. He'd almost managed to lull her into security--and then what? She doubted he'd do anything, not here, out in the open, but she had to keep herself safe--

Alistair seemed to notice that the mood had changed, and he eased back, looking suddenly nervous again. "Not that I'm some... drooling lecher, or anything." He coughed awkwardly, his gaze darting from stone pillar to stone pillar, and abruptly changed the subject. "So--I'm curious. Have you ever encountered darkspawn before?"

The question was such a non sequitur that Raven's head spun. "No, I haven't," she said quietly, trying desperately to calm herself. He'd only been flirting. That was what young men _did_. He hadn't meant anything by it--he'd almost certainly not been planning anything... nefarious. She was safe, and she was a _fool_.

Alistair's voice was softer now. "When I fought my first darkspawn, I wasn't prepared for how monstrous it was. I can't say I'm looking forward to encountering another." He looked away from Raven. "Anyhow, we should probably go find Duncan. I imagine he's eager to get things started."

Raven felt a twinge of regret--it seemed she'd destroyed their fun, her paranoia ruining what had been, until then, a perfectly decent conversation--one of the nicest she'd ever had, in fact, especially with someone she'd only just met. She cast about for something--_anything_\--else to say. _Should I comment on the weather? The battle? His hair?_ An idea occurred to her, and she grasped at it without hesitation. "That argument I saw... what was it about?"

It might have been Raven's imagination, but she thought Alistair perked up a little at her words. "With the mage? The Circle is here at the King's request, and the Chantry doesn't like that one bit. They just _love_ letting mages know how unwelcome they are--although you likely know that better than I do." There was bitterness behind the words, surprising Raven. She'd been under the impression that the mages were sequestered, in part at least, for their own good--that those outside the Tower resented them and what they could do. She hadn't expected to hear anyone _defending_ mages, as Alistair seemed now to be. Wishful thinking? But then, he _was_ speaking with Raven, who was obviously and by her own admission a mage....

Alistair mussed his hair again, glancing away from Raven. "Which puts me in a bit of an awkward position." He paused, then spoke quickly, as though forcing the words out before they could evaporate. "I was once a Templar."

The revelation jolted Raven, and she defaulted to the blankest face she could manage, her mind working furiously behind the façade. _I knew he couldn't be trusted!_ was the first, traitorous thought--the same thing her mind had tried to tell her whenever she met Cullen's gaze back in Kinloch Hold. A cooler, more rational thought followed. _Wait, _once_ a Templar? I was under the impression that one was a Templar for life. Due to their dependence on lyrium, if nothing else. How does one _stop_ being a Templar--and why?_ Could it be he had chafed under the restrictions, or... perhaps he'd felt sorry for the mages? Raven's mind whispered that she was only trying to justify how quickly he'd put her at ease, but he _did_ seem to hold her no ill will. It wasn't an entirely unreasonable assumption that perhaps he had felt the same about other mages.

"That... would be awkward," was all she managed to say, her voice a little rougher than she would have liked. She doubted he would notice, though. Most people didn't pay such attention to others' voices, she'd found.

Alistair laughed, although it sounded forced. "I'm sure the Revered Mother meant it as an insult--sending me as her messenger--and the mage picked right up on that." He sighed. "I never would have agreed to deliver it, but Duncan says we're all to cooperate and get along. Apparently, they didn't get the same speech--" Alistair cut himself off, still eyeing Raven nervously, as though worried she would hex him for his words.

Her lips twitched upward, almost involuntarily. "I wouldn't doubt it," she murmured. "Don't worry--I know that man. He's _never_ satisfied with anything. It isn't just you."

Alistair's lopsided smile, complete with dimple, reappeared. "Good to know."

The conversation lapsed again, and this time Raven could think of nothing more to say. Silence descended, save for distant shouts from somewhere in camp, and Alistair finally cleared his throat. "So," he said, his voice cracking slightly. He grimaced. "We should... probably get to Duncan."

Raven nodded, stepping aside so he could lead the way. "I look forward to travelling with you," she said reflexively.

Alistair stopped--Raven almost ran into him--and glanced down at her. "You do?" he asked, surprise coloring his voice. "Huh. That's a switch." He hesitated, then turned to make his way down the ramp.

Raven, hiding a smile, fell into step behind him.

###### 

Duncan smiled at Raven and Alistair as they approached his fire. Ser Jory stood awkwardly behind him, gazing off somewhere in the camp, while Daveth squatted beside the fire, whittling something. "Ah, Raven. You found Alistair, then," Duncan said, and Raven hid her surprise at being addressed first. "Good. Then I take it you are ready to begin preparations." His smile slipped, and he shot a look of almost indulgent disapproval at Alistair. "Assuming, of course, that you're quite finished riling up mages, Alistair."

_Well, he's doing a decent job of riling me up, but I think that's purely unintentional,_ Raven thought.

Alistair at least had the grace to look chagrined. "What can I say?" he asked, petulance and apology warring in his voice. "The Revered Mother ambushed me. The way she wields guilt, they should stick her in the army."

Daveth let out a snort of laughter, but Duncan's look of disapproval didn't change. "She forced you to sass the mage, did she?" He sighed. "We cannot afford to antagonize people, Alistair. We don't need to give anyone more reason to dislike us."

To Raven's surprise, Alistair ducked his head. "You're right, Duncan. I apologize." His tone was familiar--it was the same one Raven had always used when she felt she'd failed Irving somehow. _Does Alistair see Duncan the same way I saw Irving, then? A mentor, almost a parent, who you never quite feel you can live up to?_

She eyed the young blond man with new interest. Perhaps they had something in common, after all.

Duncan gave Alistair an understanding nod, then spoke louder, addressing all three recruits. "Now then, since you are all here, we can begin."

Daveth stood, sheathing his knife and tucking the stick into his belt pouch. Ser Jory straightened, although the look of anxiety on his face remained firmly in place. Raven, for her part, clasped her hands behind her back and tried to look _attentive_ instead of simply _blank_. _The moment of truth--just like when I stepped into the Harrowing chamber. We're about to discover what this Joining entails._

"You four," Duncan said, "will be heading into the Korcari Wilds to perform two tasks." The assembled listeners leaned forward, except for Alistair, who likely already knew what Duncan had in mind. "The first is to obtain three vials of darkspawn blood, one for each recruit."

_So we _will_ be facing darkspawn,_ Raven thought, forcing her nervousness off her face and out of her posture, ignoring Daveth's dark expression and Ser Jory's hand-wringing. Her own hands still tightened painfully on one another. _But... he said we _four_, at least. Alistair has seen the creatures before. He'll know how to deal with them--in fact, he likely had to do this for his _own_ Joining. Although... were the darkspawn massing then? How long ago was he recruited--he said he was the 'newest' Grey Warden, but that could mean anything._

Duncan continued speaking, and Raven tried hard to listen to him and quiet her own internal commentary. "As for the second task: there was once a Grey Warden archive in the Wilds. We abandoned it long ago when we could no longer afford to maintain such remote outposts." Raven perked up, if only slightly, at the word 'archive'. "It has recently come to our attention that some scrolls were left behind, magically sealed to protect them. Alistair, I want you to retrieve these scrolls if you can."

Alistair nodded firmly, but Raven found herself speaking up. "What kind of scrolls are these?"

Duncan looked down at her, faint amusement in his voice. "Old treaties, if you're curious. Promises of support made to the Grey Wardens long ago. They were once considered only formalities, but with so many having forgotten their commitments to us, I suspect it may be a good idea to have something to remind them with."

_Oh. Not nearly as interesting as I'd hoped._ Raven tried not to feel disappointed; these treaties were no doubt extremely valuable, especially if--as Duncan said--another Blight had begun. It had taken the entirety of Thedas united to defeat each of the four previous Blights, and Raven realized that they currently had only a handful of Wardens and a small army. Furthermore, she'd seen only a half-dozen mages here, and she thought she recalled hearing that some darkspawn could also use magic; if the massing darkspawn numbered a mere thousand, and if even one percent of those could use magic, that would be enough to give the mages serious trouble. _I'm beginning to see why Duncan came to the Tower looking for recruits...._

"And if the scrolls are no longer there?" she asked aloud. Daveth shot her a curious look, although Raven wasn't certain whether he was confused by her interest or if he thought she was attempting to curry favor. By Andraste, people's expressions were _far_ too difficult to read. Raven much preferred voices.

Duncan grimaced. "It's possible the scrolls may have been destroyed or even stolen," he said, "though the seal's magic should have protected them. Only a Grey Warden can break such a seal." This, at least, interested Raven--could she study the seal, find out how it had been cast?

Shaking his head, Alistair said, "I don't understand. Why leave such things in a ruin if they're so valuable?" A question which Raven, somehow, hadn't thought of.

"It was assumed we would return soon," Duncan said, a note of regret in his tone. "A great many things were assumed that did not hold true." Was he speaking of the Order's banishment from Ferelden? Or were there other secrets in play, ones Raven would not learn until after the Joining?

Silence fell for a moment; Alistair looked morose, Daveth suspicious, and Ser Jory... anxious, unsurprisingly. Raven finally spoke up again, wondering why she was the only one of the recruits asking questions. "How will we find this archive?"

"The tower will be an overgrown ruin by now," Duncan explained, "but the sealed chest should remain intact. I have already briefed Alistair; he will guide you to the area you need to search." Alistair straightened a little at this, as though he'd only now been reminded of his own importance to the mission. Despite herself, Raven stifled a laugh. The young man was almost certainly older than she, but he reminded her of the apprentices back at Kinloch Hold.

Raven nodded firmly, feeling more sure of her place now that Duncan had explained their objectives. "Find the archive, and gather three vials of darkspawn blood. Understood."

Duncan nodded back. "Watch over your charges, Alistair," he said to the young man. "Return quickly, and safely."

"We will," Alistair replied, uncharacteristically solemn.

Duncan turned, smiling at them all. None of them smiled back. "Then may the Maker watch over your path. I will see you when you return."

Alistair and Ser Jory each pressed a fist to their chest, acknowledging Duncan's blessing. A thought occurred to Raven then, and she approached Duncan as the others turned away. "Duncan?" she asked, making certain to keep her voice level. "I'm sorry, but... I need supplies. During our trip, I noticed a number of things I was lacking, but... I'm not, I mean," she hung her head, "I don't exactly have any money. Is there anything I can do to...."

She trailed off at Duncan's nod of understanding, and he reached into a hidden slit in his wide belt, bringing out a small leather pouch. "I should have thought of that earlier," he said. "I apologize."

To Raven's surprise, he handed her the pouch. "Bring back what you don't spend," he said.

Raven weighed the pouch, uncertain of how much it held; she had very little experience with coin, having only watched Duncan purchase supplies from travelling merchants on the way to Ostagar. "I... this is far more than I expected," she confessed. "How am I to repay you?"

Duncan shook his head. "You will repay me by becoming a Grey Warden," he said. "That is far more valuable than anything I possess." He smiled down at her.

Still feeling unsure, Raven thanked him again, then caught up with Alistair and the others, noting distractedly that Alistair had acquired a sword and shield somewhere while she'd spoken to Duncan. "May I have a moment? I'm low on supplies," she said quietly.

Alistair raised his eyebrows, but said only, "Of course." Raven caught a glimpse of Daveth pulling out his whittling again as she headed off to the quartermaster.

She worried for a moment that the man would try to cheat her, but he seemed scarcely able to look at her, and the prices he quoted at her for the few things she'd seen Duncan buy seemed little different than what Duncan paid for them. Less, even. She looked over the quartermaster's supplies, made a few quick decisions, and came away from the encounter with a large belt pouch half-filled with bandages and healing herbs; a waterskin of Raven's own, which she promptly filled with ice--an act which, to her amusement, made the man even jumpier; a flint and steel, which the man sold her without a single comment about magic fire, to Raven's relief; a cheap belt knife; and a small quantity of dried food. She didn't know if she would _need_ these items on their mission in the Wilds, but it wouldn't hurt to be prepared.

She was halfway back to Duncan when a man called out to her. "You! Lady Warden!"

Raven kept her surprise from her face as she turned to find the caller, a brown-skinned man standing beside the dog kennels. _That's a far nicer salutation than I've received before,_ she mused, making her way over to him with an inquisitive look on her face--or, at least, she _hoped_ her expression was inquisitive. People in Kinloch Hold had always interpreted it that way, at least. _Making_ the facial expressions people expected was sometimes even harder than deciphering other people's faces.

"Yes?" she asked, stopping not far from the man. She'd been wary of approaching the dogs--some of them were larger even than she, and she hadn't come close to any animal larger than a Tower cat in her life--but they seemed well-behaved. Or, at least, they weren't barking or growling like the dogs she'd encountered in every farmhold on the way to Ostagar.

Dark smudges shadowed the man's eyes, and she thought he looked tired and worried. "You're one of the new Wardens, ain't you? I could use help," he said.

"What's the problem?" Raven said, keeping her voice even so as not to sound like she was promising anything.

He gestured behind himself with one thumb. "The dog here's a mabari--smart breed, and strong. Bred by mages to understand speech, it's said; I'm not sure I believe it, but they follow orders, so...." He shrugged. "This one, though... his owner died in the last battle, and the poor hound swallowed darkspawn blood. I've heard you lot'll be heading into the Wilds?"

This seemed a non sequitur to Raven, but she nodded anyway.

The man sighed, sounding relieved. "There's an herb--a flower, really--that grows in those swamps, or so I'm told. Maybe made by Chasind witches, I dunno, but there's a chance it'll help the hound. It's easy to spot--all white, save a blood-red center. Spiky petals. If you find some, bring it back, I'd be right grateful."

Raven nodded, her fingers twitching as she leafed mentally through a herbalism manual, although she didn't recognize the description. "Where would I find this flower?" she asked.

"It should grow in dead wood at the edges of ground pools," the man said. "Should be plenty this time of year--but I can't leave the hounds, and besides, no one's supposed to go into the Wilds 'less they're prepared to fight darkspawn. The King wants to save us for the battle, and I can't blame him."

"I'll see if I can find some while I'm there," Raven promised, and the man smiled.

"Thank you, my lady. And I'm certain the hound will thank you, too."

Raven nodded a farewell, then hurried back to return Duncan's coin pouch before rejoining the other recruits. Together they approached a gate at the west end of camp, past the Wardens' tents and the royal encampment. A soldier, hound by her side, stood guard there. She came to attention as Alistair stepped forward.

"Hail!" the soldier said. "I'm told you have business in the Wilds." She looked them over sternly. "The gate's open for you, just be careful out there. Even a Grey Warden won't be safe in the forest tonight."

Alistair nodded, looking far more confident than Raven felt, and led the group of nervous recruits into the Wilds beyond.

From what Raven had seen from the bridge and the surrounding land, she had expected 'the forest' to be something like the woods she'd camped in with Duncan, but what met her eyes as they stepped along a faintly worn trail was strips of semi-dry land cutting through boggy pools, cattails and reeds crowding around their edges and trees jutting thickly from the few outcroppings of earth that managed to rise above the marsh. She quickly learned to stay on the path, after Ser Jory's feet sank into the damp ground beside one of the pools and it took both Alistair and Daveth to pull him free. Her much-abused boots quickly grew uncomfortably damp, and Raven hoped she wouldn't be out here long enough for her feet to blister--she'd already had to heal more blisters on the way to Ostagar than she'd received in her entire life until then.

She kept a careful eye on Alistair, the only one of them who actually knew what he was doing. Ser Jory was jumpy, Daveth quietly wary, but Alistair strode confidently forward as though certain they wouldn't be attacked. Arrogance? Bravery? Or did he know something the others were unaware of?

They hadn't walked for long before catching sight of a wooden cart, overturned and broken. Raven's steps slowed as the group approached it; the splintered wood was scarcely damp. The cold breeze, brushing past from deeper in the marsh, brought unpleasant scents that Raven couldn't recognize, and she swallowed hard--

A rustling sounded from beyond the cart, its source hidden by the rise of the land. Raven clutched her staff, the air around her growing bitingly cold from her apprehension as Alistair held up one hand, stopping the recruits so he could scout quietly forward alone.

He halted, then hurried toward something Raven couldn't see. "What happened to you, man?" Alistair exclaimed, and Raven rushed forward, heart pounding, to find a massacre on the other side of the rise. Bodies lay strewn across a large patch of solid ground, too still, limbs at unnatural angles. One bloodied soldier sprawled in the sparse grass at Alistair's feet, coughing weakly.

The man--and how had he survived?--squinted up at his rescuers in the weak sunlight that filtered through low clouds. He was staring at Alistair's shield, Raven realized; she hadn't noticed until now the stylized griffon painted on the shield's leather wrapping.

"Who... is that? Grey... Wardens...?" The man's voice rasped, as though from pain and lack of water. Raven's waterskin was still nearly frozen solid, but Alistair pulled out his own, crouching down to the man.

"Well, you're not half as dead as you look, are you?" he asked, his voice filled with cheer that sounded only half-feigned. He helped the man sit up, then offered the soldier water, which the man gulped down.

The soldier swallowed hard, coughed, and then rasped again. "My scouting band was attacked by darkspawn. They came out of the ground... please, help me! I've got to... return to camp...." His head drooped, as though speaking had sapped most of his strength.

"We can take you back," Ser Jory offered, his voice a little too eager. It was clear that he didn't want to be out here in the Wilds, searching for the darkspawn who had nearly killed this man.

The soldier, though, shook his head, slow and painful. "If you just... help me up... I can get back on my own," he gasped. Raven had scarcely believed someone _less_ in her life, and she'd once known an apprentice who claimed Andraste Herself had appeared in the sugar bowl at lunch and told him to take up wrestling.

The others glanced at each other--they clearly didn't believe him either, but Alistair was obviously reluctant to delay the tasks they'd been given. Finally, Raven stepped forward, raising a hesitant hand. "I can help," she said, her voice quiet but firm.

Ser Jory's eyes widened--was he worried about her magic, as well as the Wilds and the darkspawn and the Joining?--but Alistair frowned, then nodded. "Do it," he said.

Raven crouched down before the wounded soldier, who didn't seem to realize what was happening until Raven's hand began to glow. "Wait--I--" he said, panic in his voice, but Raven was already pushing mana through her hand and into the soldier's body, seeking his injuries. _Broken arm, twisted ankle, numerous cuts and gashes,_ she inventoried, the sounds of the real world falling away as she concentrated only on the movement of blood through veins, air through lungs. She sealed anything still leaking blood and knit the very edges of the broken bone together--a hair-fine repair, but it would hold if he didn't put any weight on it. The twisted ankle got the most of her attention; she soothed the angry redness until it was well enough for him to hobble back to Ostagar. She healed a slight concussion, cleared an infection beginning to take hold in a gash on the man's arm, and finally withdrew her consciousness, becoming aware that her brow was soaked with sweat and her arm was shaking.

She sat back in the dirt with a soft _thump_ and sipped icy water from her waterskin, then pulled a lump of bread from her belt pouch. Once she felt well enough, Raven stood, leaning slightly on her staff as she surveyed her work.

Groaning softly, the soldier pushed himself up with his good arm, looking down over himself with surprise. "I... thank you, I suppose," he said, the gruffness in his voice not only from the injury this time. It seemed as though he wasn't as sanguine with her use of magic as the Wardens were, but perhaps he thought it would be bad manners to criticize the girl who had possibly just saved his life.

"Can you get back now?" she asked, keeping all expression from her voice.

The soldier nodded, not looking at Raven. "I... I've got to get out of here." He pushed past the knot of Wardens, limping back to Ostagar as quickly as his recently twisted ankle would allow him. Before long he was out of sight beyond the marsh's stunted trees.

"Well, he may have been an ungrateful boor," Alistair said, grinning, "but I'll thank you properly." He performed a wildly exaggerated bow. "Allow me to convey that man's sincere gratitude, fair maiden, for the service you have performed on this day." Still half-bent, he wiggled his eyebrows at Raven, who--as Daveth snickered--fought to keep her expression blank. Judging by Alistair's answering grin, it hadn't worked as well as he'd hoped.

_Charming though he may seem, you can't trust him,_ she reminded herself, and was almost grateful when Ser Jory finally found the courage to speak up. "Did you hear him? An entire patrol of seasoned men, killed by darkspawn!" His voice quavered like ripples in the boggy pools.

Alistair unbent himself, looking seriously--well, _almost_ seriously, which Raven was beginning to think was the best she was going to get--at the apprehensive knight. "Calm down, Ser Jory. We'll be fine if we're careful."

Ser Jory shook his head, gesturing at the massacre. "Those soldiers were careful, and they were still overwhelmed. How many darkspawn can the four of us slay?" His voice rose in near-panic, and Raven resisted the urge to freeze him until he calmed down. It likely wouldn't help. "A dozen? A hundred? There's an entire army in these forests!"

"There _are_ darkspawn about," Alistair said, his voice soothing even if his words weren't, "but we're in no danger of walking into the bulk of the horde."

"How do you know!?" Ser Jory asked. "I'm no coward--"

_You could have fooled me,_ Raven thought drily.

"--but this is foolish and reckless. We should go back."

This last pronouncement was in as firm a voice as Raven had ever heard from the man--although, granted, her acquaintance with him had been very short. He planted his feet, looking from one face to another as though expecting the others to agree with him at once.

Daveth snorted. Alistair merely looked at Ser Jory, as though waiting to see what the others would say.

Raven was becoming almost annoyed that she kept being the one who had to speak up, but it seemed if she didn't, they would stand here staring at one another for hours. "Overcoming these dangers is part of our test," she said. "If we can't even face a handful of darkspawn, then what business do we have becoming Grey Wardens?"

Ser Jory blinked several times, as though he'd forgotten just why they'd come to the Wilds in the first place. "That's... true," he said grudgingly. "But I'm still not willing to lay down my life for nothing--"

Alistair held up a soothing hand. "Know this," he said. "All Grey Wardens can sense darkspawn. Whatever their cunning, I guarantee the creatures won't take us by surprise. That's why I'm here."

At these words, Raven's mind at once began churning. _A spell? Something hidden for centuries, used only by the Grey Wardens? Or is it a part of this Joining? Does one gain the ability to sense darkspawn after fighting them, or... you'll find out soon enough, Raven. You're here to _become_ a Warden. Keep your mind on the Wilds._ She reined in her thoughts in time to hear Daveth chuckle, speaking up at last. "You see, ser knight? We might die, but we'll be warned about it first."

_Not helpful,_ Raven thought, directing a flat look toward the leather-clad man. To her surprise, however, Ser Jory nodded thoughtfully. "That is... reassuring?"

Alistair sighed, as though fed up at last with this conversation. "That doesn't mean I'm here to make this easy, however. So let's get a move on." He levelled a friendly glare at the two men before flashing a lopsided grin at Raven and setting off, away from the bodies of the scouts.

She was never sure, after that, whether Alistair intentionally steered them toward the darkspawn or not. All she knew was that the massacred soldiers were scarcely out of sight when a hoarse, guttural cry rang over the swamp, and _monsters_ began rushing toward them.

Raven readied herself as the darkspawn rushed across the marshy field toward the recruits. _This will be little different from fighting spirits,_ she told herself, raising her staff in a defiant gesture as she used the focus of its metal spikes to gather mana from the air about her. The creatures--a good two dozen of them--were humanoid, taller than Alistair, with grayish skin and bald heads. Clad in crude, spiked armor, they brandished varied makeshift weapons of something dark and matte, and wild grins split their hideous faces.

To his credit, Ser Jory didn't run away, although he did whimper as his hands tightened on his sword's hilt. Daveth dropped into a crouch, and even Alistair--despite his claim that he wasn't really there to help--drew his sword, bringing up his shield. _Of course, they won't just ignore him because he isn't one of the recruits,_ Raven thought, time seeming to slow disconcertingly as the darkspawn charged, their feet pounding against the ground like thunder.

Mana coalesced in Raven's hands, and she shot it forth, freezing the lead darkspawn with a sharp _crack_. Its momentum carried it forward, and it shattered on the ground a good fifty feet away from the group.

After a moment of stunned silence, Ser Jory yelled as he and Daveth dashed forward to intercept the creatures. Blades rung out in the quiet air of the Wilds, and Raven abruptly found herself thrust into battle.

Alistair stayed by her side, his dark gaze alert. _He's staying back to protect me if any of them get too close,_ she realized with surprising calm, freezing another darkspawn, then a third, precise hand gestures helping direct the flow of mana. Neither creature fell and shattered, but they at least couldn't attack Daveth and Ser Jory until the spell wore off. The fourth, however, was only slowed; it shook itself, and Raven's ice shattered, shards sparkling in the dim sunlight. She frowned in contemplation. This darkspawn was bigger, its armor spikier, and it wore a helm to cover its baldness.

"What's the difference with that one?" she asked Alistair, flinging a bolt of lighting at the taller figure; it spasmed, almost dropping its sword. "It's larger, dressed differently, and more resistant to my spells."

"--Wha?" Alistair asked, clearly not used to answering questions during battle. Raven gestured with a frost-wreathed hand, freezing the taller creature's legs and allowing Ser Jory to cut it down. "Ah. That's an--well, those are hurlocks, the most human-shaped of the darkspawn. There's usually one in charge, rallying its troops into battle--we call those 'alpha' darkspawn."

Raven flicked her wrist, coating another of the darkspawn--whose numbers were rapidly diminishing--in ice, and tried not to let the strain show on her face. While it might not look like she was doing much physically, it was difficult to pull this much mana from the air--especially here, where the Veil was far thicker than at Kinloch Hold, not worn away by centuries of spells and spirits. If the fight continued for very long, she would be forced to use her own energy to power her spells, a dangerous practice. _I wish I had lyrium--the few times the instructors let us use it in class, it filled my mana reserves to bursting. I wonder, can the Grey Wardens procure some for their mages? Or does the Chantry disallow it?_

"How does a darkspawn become an alpha?" she asked Alistair, hiding a grimace at the breathlessness in her voice. "Are they the oldest, or the ones who grow tallest?"

Alistair shrugged, his eyes on the battle, brow knit in concern. Following his gaze, Raven saw blood dripping slowly from a slice across one of Daveth's calves. Fortunately, there were only two darkspawn left--one for each of her fellow recruits--and Raven froze one of them, although she could scarcely scrape up enough mana to do more than slow the hurlock. It was still enough for Daveth to take the creature down. "I don't know if anyone knows that," Alistair confessed. "We don't know much about darkspawn, really--how to kill them, mostly. That's the most important part."

Across the field, Ser Jory let out a triumphant cry as the final darkspawn fell to the ground, bisected at the waist from a mighty two-handed swing. The knight seemed to be feeling more confident, now he'd actually got the chance to battle the darkspawn. "Do you know where they come from, at least?" Raven asked, planting the butt of her staff into the soft earth and leaning on it as she caught her breath. She took a long swallow from her waterskin, hoping the recruits weren't attacked again until she'd replenished her mana reserves. "How they're created? It can't be as the Chantry says--that they're born of pure sin, a result of mankind's intrusion on the Maker's Golden City. That's foolishness."

Alistair shot her a sidelong glance. "We--we don't really know that, either," he said, and Raven rolled her eyes. The man was a poor liar. _Fine. I'll just have to discover that on my own. Perhaps once I become a Grey Warden, I'll have access to some manner of archive that holds more than just old treaties._ The conversation died, though, as the two men rejoined them; to Raven's amusement, the nervous Ser Jory now almost bounced with excitement, and confident Daveth looked distinctly green.

Summoning her little remaining mana, Raven dropped into a crouch and placed one hand on Daveth's knee, heedless of the blood. She sent a pulse of healing into the wound, sealing the edges. "You'll probably want to bandage that," she said, standing. "I didn't heal it entirely--you seem the type who would complain if I didn't let you keep your battle scars." She'd known a couple of apprentices like that, who proudly showed off the jagged lines where they'd run afoul of a summoned demon or the feathery burns of a magical flame gone out of control.

Raven had _never_ understood those people. She kept her own scars well-hidden. Although she scarcely recalled being burned, she'd been told later that she hadn't even wanted to let the infirmary mages see her back, afterward.

"Thank you," Daveth muttered, his cheeks unexpectedly pink. He flexed his knee to test the wound, grunted, and said, "Er. Bandages?"

Rolling her eyes, Raven pulled bandages from the pouch at her waist, handing them over and retrieving an apple for herself. Daveth wrapped a bandage expertly around the pink scab on his leg, tied it off, sliced through the end with his belt knife--not, to Raven's relief, one of his daggers, still stained with blood that was far too dark--and handed the bandages back. He glanced about, then wiped his blades on the grass nearby.

Ser Jory had already sheathed his sword. "Well," he said, wonder replacing the quaver in his voice, "that was... bracing."

Alistair smiled. "Not as bad as you were expecting?"

"They are... monstrous, to be true," Ser Jory said thoughtfully. "Yet they are not as skilled as the bandits I have faced as one of Arl Eamon's knights. That helps."

He turned to Raven, who fought to keep her face smooth at the admiration in his voice as he said, "Thank you for the help. I was not expecting your magic to be so incredibly resourceful--truth be told, I was expecting to have to dodge fireballs."

Raven drew upon her ice, soothing herself. He couldn't know. "I didn't specialize in fire," she said. "It's... dangerous."

Ser Jory inclined his head. "You are a skilled fighter, my lady." 

"As are you," Raven said, uncomfortable of his praise.

She tried not to notice Alistair, watching the exchange with obvious interest.

The conversation faded, and Alistair cleared his throat. "I believe we had a specific task to be performed here?" he said, reaching into a pouch at his waist and removing three small glass vials, tightly corked. "You'd better hurry, before the blood dries."

Each of the three recruits took a vial, hurrying off to one of the fallen darkspawn. Raven grimaced as she approached her chosen creature--they smelled almost as bad as they looked, of sour sweat and damp rot. Blood still trickled sluggishly from a slit throat--Daveth's work, no doubt--and Raven caught the blood in her vial, peering uneasily at the congealing liquid. It was so dark a red as to be nearly black, and as her finger brushed against the blood, her skin began to burn dully.

She hurriedly wiped her finger on the grass and returned to Alistair, feeling uncomfortably as though she were holding a phylactery. The creatures' blood was colder than it seemed it should be, and it called to mind the frozen room below Kinloch Hold more strongly than Raven liked. She was glad when Alistair tucked the vials away, removing them from sight and--she hoped--from mind.

Now all that was left was to find the cache.

This turned out to be a more difficult task than Raven had anticipated. The dry paths through the marsh wound around confusingly, doubling back through groves of trees and around pools where Tevinter ruins lay like the bones of enormous carcasses. Twice more they discovered corpses--the first a squad of the King's soldiers, the second a group of fur-clad Chasind. Darkspawn attacked three more times, and now there were shorter figures among them; genlocks, Alistair called them.

The squat figures--perhaps half the height of the towering hurlocks--were stocky, much like Raven had heard dwarves described; although they otherwise looked little different from their larger counterparts, it was harder for Raven's spells to affect them, leading her to wonder whether they _were_ related to the magic-resistant dwarves. It seemed genlocks, like hurlocks, could become alphas, as one led the third group of darkspawn Raven and the others encountered. _I'll have to study, find out how many kinds of darkspawn there are and what they can do,_ Raven told herself firmly, focusing her spells on the hurlocks so her companions could kill the genlocks without her aid.

Though all three recruits were growing more used to the fighting, fatigue was obvious in their movements as they left the site of the third battle. It seemed the others, even Daveth, had little experience with traversing this sort of terrain. Only Alistair remained fresh; the walking seemed to bother him not at all, and though he twice had to fight off large groups of darkspawn that broke off to attack Raven, his attacks were easy and sure.

_Is that what it's like to be a Grey Warden?_ Raven had thought with wonder, watching Alistair take down three of the creatures with a single sweep of his blade, as she had frozen a fourth to aid him. _It's almost as though he knows where they're going to attack, and his body moves without conscious effort._

To fill the silence as they walked, Alistair soon began telling them about how he'd been recruited into the Wardens. Duncan had come to the monastery where he'd been training as a Templar, it transpired, and although Alistair hadn't won the tournament that had been held in the Warden's honor, he had still been chosen. "Duncan saw I wasn't happy, and figured my training against mages could double for fighting darkspawn. Now here I stand, a proud Grey Warden," Alistair said, a surprising amount of passion in his words. "The Grand Cleric wouldn't have let me go if Duncan hadn't forced the issue. I'll always be grateful to Duncan for that."

Ser Jory next offered an account of his own recruitment--he'd won a 'grand melee', and Duncan had agreed to take him on. He'd left a pregnant wife in Redcliffe, but felt proud that he was doing his part to protect Ferelden. Daveth, in contrast, had been set to hang for cutting purses and picking pockets; when he'd picked Duncan's pockets, though, the Warden had conscripted him to keep him from the garrison's hands. _It's funny,_ Raven thought uncomfortably. _Of these three, I have the most in common with the thief._

Of course, the two of them also had far more in common with Duncan himself than either Alistair or Ser Jory did. Could they, perhaps, also do as much good? It was certainly something to ponder as Raven walked.

Once Daveth had related his tale, Raven felt compelled to do the same. She still held some details back, telling the others only that she had been sentenced to death for helping a fellow mage to flee the Tower, but it somehow felt good to speak even that much. The others wouldn't judge her, not here. They had all been born anew, in a way, once Duncan recruited them.

_All except Ser Jory, with his pretty wife,_ Raven thought uneasily. _Will he be able to carry out his duties as a Grey Warden if he's worried about her?_

She supposed they would have to see, in time.


	7. Morrigan

The sun, behind low clouds, was sinking toward the horizon, and Raven wondered whether Alistair had lost his way, when the ground began to slope upward away from the marshy pools. The vegetation shifted from water plants to grasses--many of them spiky, the four of them soon learned, prompting many a muttered curse--and while the trees still grew less thickly than in the forest around Lake Calenhad, they were both more plentiful and taller than those in the marsh. The curved arches of the Tevinter ruins here were far from intact, but they looked more like those in Ostagar than the carcasses in the pools below, not as worn down by weather and water.

_Where _are_ we?_ Raven wondered, yanking her long robes free from yet another thorny bush. She'd tried to keep track of their route, but the marsh twisted around itself, no path running straight for more than a few dozen steps. She hoped Alistair knew the way back to Ostagar--they had no supplies to spend the night out here in the wilderness, especially with darkspawn prowling about. Alistair sometimes held up one hand, halting the group's progress until he felt it was safe to proceed, and she wondered how many battles he'd helped them avoid.

"There!" Alistair said suddenly, and Raven looked up the hill before them to see a tower, one whose base might once have been as broad as Kinloch Hold. Its walls had mostly crumbled, broken pillars lying forgotten in the brush. "That should be the tower!"

He started eagerly up the hill, leading the three recruits--and halted. "Ambush!" he hissed, and shoved Ser Jory out of the way as something flew past them both. Raven jumped back, the air around her hands and staff freezing as she realized the object had been an arrow, jagged and black, its fletching tattered and fraying.

A growl from behind a pillar up the hill caught Raven's attention, fear prickling down her spine as she realized the creatures had been waiting for them.

_How much intelligence do they truly have?_ she wondered, gathering all the mana she could before the battle began in earnest. Her head began to pound--she had pushed herself hard already, and the thought of another fight was daunting.

A shout echoed from above--_words_, to Raven's amazement, in a guttural language she'd never heard before. 

The darkspawn charged.

Ser Jory screamed and lunged at the creatures, his large blade shearing off the first monster's arm. Another came at him, and Raven froze it, immediately turning her attention from that battle and seeking Daveth. Three darkspawn advanced on the leather-clad man, who darted forward and slashed the thighs of the one in the lead before leaping back. Raven froze the second and sent a small bolt of lightning into the blade of the third, who hissed in displeasure and dropped its weapon--

A flash lit the battlefield, and Raven had almost no time to react as a ball of flame soared down toward her. Her hands moved, shaping mana before she could even think; the flames stopped a handspan from Raven's head as she crouched, gasping for breath as her heart constricted. That had been _close_.

The fire dissipated against her icy shield, steam hissing in the air as the diametrically opposed forces met one another. Whoever had hurled the fireball had released it, however, no longer supplying it with mana; with no other source of fuel, it died out, leaving only the faint smell of scorched metal. "_Ow_," Alistair complained, making Raven jump, and she turned to see that the shoulder of his shield arm had been singed by the attack. "I'm well!" he hastened to say. "Go--take down the emissary!"

Raven wasn't sure what an 'emissary' was, but she knew how to find it--follow the magic. Another icy shield readied in her mind, Raven dashed into the fray, stepping around dead and dying darkspawn as her companions fought on.

The figure caught her eye the moment it came into view. Clad in shredded, blackened robes, it held aloft a staff that seemed hewn from the branch of a lightning-struck tree, twisted and gnarled. With deep cry in the same voice that had called the attack, it loosed another ball of flame toward Raven; she ducked and rolled to the side, her staff parallel to the ground, fire spattering across the damp ground to her immediate left. She held her breath, so as not to scorch her lungs, and retaliated as she regained her footing.

Ice wasn't likely to do much good against something that used flame, so Raven flung a bolt of lightning at the creature; her shot flew true, but dissipated across the emissary's form with a _hiss_, leaving the darkspawn largely unaffected. It growled something that sounded like a darkspawn epithet, focusing milky gray eyes on the mage standing before it.

One corner of the emissary's lipless mouth turned up as though in a smirk, and it gestured. Dense fog, tinted a sickly yellow, formed in the air between them; Raven backed up a step, holding her breath, but a tendril of the fog suddenly lashed forth at her. Panic burst into her chest, and Raven felt as though she were aflame, unable to see or breathe or _think_. She could scarcely feel her hands moving again of their own accord, but her shield was useless here--she was going to die, and she didn't even know _how_\--

But the more she tried to isolate her fear, the more she realized that it _couldn't_ be isolated. There _was_ no logical reason she should feel like this, and with that realization came a flicker of memory--the school of entropy, a school Raven had scarcely dabbled in, contained a spell called 'horror'.

_Your will is real,_ sounded Irving's gravelly voice in Raven's mind, and she _pushed_ against the foreign emotions with a shout of pure determination. She wouldn't be taken down by someone using such a _cheap_ trick.

Her eyes opened, and the yellow fog shredded as though it had never been. Only moments seemed to have passed. Something didn't feel right about Raven's arm, but she ignored the sensation, focusing her mana and compressing it into a single sharp point.

The emissary raised a hand, and fire billowed toward Raven, but the spike of ice she had formed left her fingers and flew true; cutting through the flames, it embedded itself deep into one of the emissary's filmy eyes.

The darkspawn collapsed, lifeless, to the scorched ground, and Raven crumpled as well.

As the shock of the emissary's attacks wore off, Raven became aware of a growing pain in her arm; as she inspected the area, she drew in her breath with a hiss. The creature had managed to hit her at some point with a jet of flame--while she'd been incapacitated by fear, no doubt--and the skin of her forearm was blistered, an angry red. She called up healing and ice, both together, laying them across her arm and letting the healing seep down to the bone, and watched with interest as the burns faded and the skin smoothed beneath her touch.

_Why am I not panicking?_ she wondered. _I always--I couldn't face the thought of being burned. But I'm... calm. Was it because of the emissary's spell--did it overwhelm my sense of fear?_

Frowning in concentration, still sprawled on the ground, Raven snapped her fingers. A tiny flame appeared on her fingertip, and her complaints began at once--racing heart, blurred vision, shortened breath. Distant screams in the chill air.

She snuffed the fire, frost coating her clothing and the ground about her as she hastened to calm her shudders. _I still can't _make_ flame,_ Raven thought, forcing herself to be logical and rational, to forget her emotions. _But... I hadn't been burned, not since then. Is it possible for someone to only be afraid of their _own_ flames?_

"Raven!" a voice called out, and footsteps pounded up the hill toward where Raven lay. She at once pushed herself into a seated position, then used her staff to pull her to her feet. _I mustn't show weakness._

"I'm well," she announced, turning to face Alistair; the usual humor in his expression had been replaced with worry, although the lines faded as he approached and found her... well, _relatively_ unharmed. He walked painfully, limping, the arm which had been scorched held stiff at his side. "The others?"

Alistair looked her over, still solemn. "Both alive," he reported. "They'll need healing, but--"

"I'll do it," Raven said, stepping toward him. Now she was standing, she was dizzy and felt ill, but her first priority was getting the others ready to fight. Raven could battle even when lying on the ground, if necessary. The melee fighters needed to be able to move with their foes.

Before Alistair could protest, she reached for his good hand, sending an exploratory pulse of magic through him. Bruises, several of them; Raven soothed a bit of the ache, but bruises would heal. She closed a few minor gashes and two more serious ones, soothed his burned shoulder and left a lingering chill in his pauldron. Then, staggering a little as her repeated use of magic began catching up to her, she started down the hill toward the others.

Alistair jogged ahead of her to cut her off, gesturing awkwardly toward her as though unwilling to take her arm. "I'm not sure it'll help if you fall down the hill," he said, a half-hearted laugh in his voice. "Would... would you like help?"

She studied him for a moment. He seemed utterly sincere, and hadn't just grabbed for her; it seemed entirely up to her whether she accepted his help or not. Her instincts hissed at her not to trust him, but... wasn't that what they had said about Cullen, too? Perhaps... perhaps it _would_ be all right if she trusted this Grey Warden. If only a little.

Raven accepted Alistair's proffered arm, and together they limped back to where Daveth and Ser Jory sat.

Both had fared worse than Alistair, but Ser Jory stoutly refused any help until Raven sat down on a fallen log and ate the cheese and flatbread which Alistair had dug from his belt pouch. Daveth had broken two fingers, but could still hold his daggers; Ser Jory's arm had been wrenched nearly out of its socket, and Raven worked hard on the tendons and ligaments, strengthening them so he wouldn't have to worry about a dislocation. Finally she sat back, gasping for breath, knowing her robes would be damp with sweat if she wasn't freezing. _If only I could turn my natural defensive reactions against my enemies,_ she thought wryly, trying to soothe the chill her own magic had left in her joints. _No one could come near me without turning to ice._

Ser Jory gave her a tremulous smile. "I confess, when I came here to Ostagar, I was uneasy with the presence of mages in the camp," he said. "My prejudice was unfounded, my lady. I apologize."

"You needn't apologize," Raven rasped, pushing herself to her feet. It would be dark in a few hours. They needed to find the treaties and leave, and she couldn't afford to waste time sitting here recovering. _I need to study the other schools of magic, too,_ she thought, stepping grimly forward; she caught the worried glances Ser Jory and Alistair shared as they walked beside her. _If I hadn't known what the emissary's spell was, I would be dead. Think, Raven! There are so many things you'll have to learn. You're no longer just trying to pass exams. Your _life_ is on the line out here._

No sound echoed from the ruined stones save the dull thumps of their footsteps, the rustle and clank of the men's armor, as Alistair led the three recruits past darkspawn corpses and into the ruin of the tower.

It was obviously of Tevinter build, its arches and curling ramps just like those in Ostagar, but this tower had seen far more difficult times than had the ancient fortress. Very little remained of the back wall, and portions of the tower's ceiling had fallen through long ago, coming to rest in piles of shattered white stone. Raven's pulse quickened as she saw something, half-hidden in the shadows cast by the rubble, of a different color than the surrounding stone--the dark brown grain of wood. A chest.

She stepped into the ruin behind Alistair, Daveth and Ser Jory flanking her, their feet scuffing across broken cobbles. As one, they approached the chest, seeking the scrolls that had been hidden there centuries ago.

But even from halfway across the room, Raven could see that the wood was crushed, damaged long ago by falling stone. And its shattered confines lay empty.

_That chest wasn't necessarily where the scrolls were kept,_ she told herself, stepping past Alistair and crouching to sift through the debris. _There might very well be hidden niches in this tower, places where the Wardens of old knew things would lie undisturbed. We should split up, search--_

A footstep, soft against stone, scraped on the ruined tower wall above.

Raven jerked her gaze upward. A woman peered down at Raven and the others--but she was like no woman Raven had ever seen before. She wore a long, dark skirt made of something that seemed to absorb light, the spines of crow feathers glinting here and there among its folds. Maroon cloth draped over her chest, exposing, as she shifted, glimpses of skin just lighter than Alistair's and the occasional gleam of a golden, collar-like necklace. Her hair was as dark as Raven's own, pulled up so it looked almost as though it, too, were made of feathers--more of which adorned the bracers on the woman's forearms. She came to a rest leaning against a cracked pillar, her arms folded, a smugness to her smile as though Alistair and the recruits had played directly into her hands.

"Well, well," she purred, her voice alto like Raven's but far richer, with a hint of almost cruel amusement in it. "What have we here?"

The woman tossed her head, and Raven's breath caught in her throat. Strapped to the woman's back, scarcely visible from this angle, was a _staff_. Made of dark, branching wood, it had string wrapped around it in intricate patterns. _An apostate,_ Raven thought, equal parts wariness and wonder rising within her. _A mage not subject to the whims of the Circle._

"Are you a vulture, I wonder?" the unknown mage asked, holding Raven's gaze; her tone was almost accusing, but strangely light. "A scavenger poking amidst a corpse whose bones were long since cleaned?" Behind Raven, the others were silent. Were they afraid of angering this strange crow-woman?

The woman pushed herself dramatically off the pillar--_did she practice this entrance? It's almost... choreographed_\--and circled around, stepping down the spiral ramp as she spoke. "Or merely an intruder, come into these darkspawn-filled Wilds of mine in search of easy prey?"

The apostate came to a stop a few feet before Raven, looking her over with eyes of an eerie golden shade. Raven stared back, resolute, one hand on her staff although she made no move to attack. The woman was nearly a head taller than Raven, and as she looked down, her lips quirked upward as though she were pleased with what she saw.

"What say you, hmmm?" she asked, her pose making it clear she spoke solely to Raven. "Scavenger or intruder?"

Raven raised her chin, meeting the woman's eyes while hiding her shaking free hand behind her back. Raven's face and voice were tremorless as she said, "I am neither. This tower once belonged to the Grey Wardens."

"'Tis a tower no longer," the woman pointed out, finally looking away from Raven and glancing about the ruins. Raven took the chance to breathe, unsure just what emotions vied within her now. Apprehension? Curiosity? Annoyance, perhaps, that this woman was keeping them from their task? "The Wilds have obviously claimed this dessicated corpse."

_She's trying to impress us,_ Raven finally decided. _She's worried about our presence, and wishes to distract us--intimidate us, perhaps._

The woman's gaze moved beyond Raven, travelling from one man to another. "I have watched your progress for some time. 'Where do they go?' I wondered. 'Why are they here?'" She gestured at the broken chest. "And now you disturb ashes none have touched for so long. Why is that?"

Raven began to reply, but Alistair seemed to have finally found his voice, cutting her off. "That's Warden business!" he barked, then lowered his voice. "She looks Chasind--she might be setting us up for an ambush."

His voice was apparently not low enough, because the woman scoffed. "You fear barbarians may swoop down on you?" she asked, making a sharp sweeping gesture with both arms, as though pantomiming 'swooping barbarians'. Whatever _those_ were. Raven had read a little about the Chasind, hunters who lived in the Wilds and the frozen mountains to the west, and thought 'barbarian' was a rather harsh term for the people. True, they didn't interact much with the rest of Ferelden, and they strongly opposed the Chantry, and... well, that fact alone was likely enough for most in Thedas to term them 'barbarians'.

Alistair, though, seemed to agree with the 'barbarian' assessment. "Yes, swooping is _bad_," he said, not able to keep all the sarcasm from his voice. Raven felt a sudden urge to freeze him, lest he turn this conversation against them.

She quickly realized, however, that she would have to freeze _all_ of her companions to regain control of things. _I was doing well on my own,_ she thought with annoyance, as Daveth spoke up. "She's a Witch of the Wilds, she is! She'll turn us into toads!"

_This probably isn't the time to explain how that is physically and magically improbable,_ Raven thought, rolling her eyes. The 'witch' laughed, and Raven started, realizing the woman had been watching her again. "Witch of the Wilds?" the woman asked with amusement, smirking at Raven. "Such idle fancies, those legends. Have you no minds of your own?"

She took a step closer to Raven, who held up a hand to ward the others back as she heard the scrape of blades being slid from scabbards. "You," the woman said musingly. "Women do not frighten like little boys. Tell me your name, and I shall tell you mine."

Her voice sounded almost... normal, no longer rich and smooth and dripping with laughter. A voice much like Raven's own, the voice of a fellow mage. Raven found herself speaking almost before she'd consciously decided to. "I am Raven," she said. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

The woman smiled, looking delighted. "Now that is a proper, civil greeting, even here in the Wilds." She inclined her head to Raven. "You may call me Morrigan."

Raven nodded back--wary, but a gesture of respect nonetheless.

"Shall I guess your purpose?" Morrigan asked, waving toward the chest. "You sought something in that chest, something that is here no longer?"

_Does she know of the treaties?_ Raven nodded, then sighed as Alistair burst in again. "'Here no longer'? You stole them, didn't you! You're... some kind of..." he grappled for words, "sneaky... witch-thief!"

Morrigan smiled at his accusation. "How very eloquent. How does one steal from dead men?"

"Quite easily, it seems," Alistair said, and Raven found herself having to muffle a laugh. "Those documents are Grey Warden property, and...." He trailed off, and--judging by the change in his voice--made a conscious effort to dampen his frustration, which Raven hadn't expected. "And I suggest you return them."

Morrigan sniffed. "I will not, for 'twas not I who removed them." There was a faint tremor in her voice, and Raven remembered her earlier thought--that the woman was trying to intimidate them. Was she afraid that, should they turn on her, she would be unable to win a battle? "Invoke a name that no longer has meaning here, if you wish; I am not threatened."

_I don't believe you,_ Raven thought, carefully modulating her voice to sound non-threatening. She didn't wish to antagonize Morrigan. "Then who removed them?"

"'Twas my mother, in fact," Morrigan said, sounding almost grateful as she answered Raven's simple question. Well, if the men's reactions were any indication of what she had expected when she'd confronted the group, then Raven could understand why she would be pleased to find someone willing to speak normally with her.

Raven shifted her grasp on her staff, realizing that she'd been gripping it tightly since Morrigan had arrived. The conversation was going well enough, however, that she didn't think she would need her weapon. "Can you take us to her?"

One of the men behind Raven muttered something she didn't quite catch, but Morrigan smiled at Raven again. "There is a sensible request." She laughed, a quiet sound of true amusement. "I like you."

Raven's eyes widened at such a blunt statement--she'd never been told that by anyone before, and certainly not by an apostate in wild clothing with dangerous eyes. She felt her lips twitch into an answering smile, which only grew as someone--Ser Jory?--sputtered behind her.

"I'd be careful," Alistair advised, his voice an odd mixture of cautioning Raven and laughing at the absurdity of the situation. "First it's 'I like you...' but then 'Zap!' Frog time." A hasty cough muffled Raven's laugh, although Morrigan shot her a look that clearly said the witch knew she was trying not to laugh.

Daveth spoke up at last, his voice quavering almost as much as Ser Jory's usually did. "She'll put us all in the pot, she will. Just you watch." Raven would almost be inclined to believe him--he _had_ grown up around here, he'd said--but at this point she was feeling decidedly unimpressed with her companions.

Ser Jory, surprisingly, made a thoughful sound. "If the pot's warmer than this forest, it'd be a nice change," he mused, and Raven choked.

"Enough," she finally said, raising a hand. "As the only other mage here, I would like to point out that _I_ do not believe Morrigan is a threat to us. Unless," she said, turning to regard the others with a flat look, "the rest of you keep antagonizing her." She turned back to Morrigan. "Where does your mother live?"

Morrigan wrinkled her nose, as though Raven had spoiled her fun, but her tone remained light. "Follow me, then, if it pleases you," she said, and swept from the ruined tower.

Raven followed, leading the men and trying to ignore the occasional dark mutter. Without her, they would likely stand there arguing until dark, and there would go any chance of returning to the camp.

###### 

Morrigan led the group through the marsh on a twisting series of paths, the way obscured by trees and pillars, pools suddenly appearing as they rounded bends or crested hills. The forest seemed _designed_ to be disorienting, as though some mad god had created it for the express purpose of leading travellers astray. Only the witch seemed unaffected by the landscape, her steps certain on the damp ground.

_We'll never find our way back to camp at this rate, unless Alistair is a better tracker than I,_ Raven thought after a quarter-hour of walking, hiding her growing nervousness as the sun sank toward the distant horizon. _I wonder how much farther it is to Morrigan's mother? Does she live here in the Wilds? Is she Chasind, like Alistair says Morrigan is?_ She tried to recall what she had read about Chasind settlements, but it was difficult to flip through her memories of books while keeping herself from slipping and falling on the uneven ground.

One of the men whistled, a falling note of appreciation, and Raven looked up from her boots, raising an eyebrow. They had reached the peak of a hill that rose taller than most of the others, and the remnants of some Tevinter fortification lay below them--now little more than a single wall and a few scattered pillars, although it must have looked grand once, looming over the forest like some massive tree.

Tucked into the shelter of the wall was a small wooden cottage, no larger than a farmhouse, although it was like no farmhouse Raven had yet seen on her journey. Half of it sat on solid ground, while the rest stood on wooden poles that kept it out of the water below. Smoke rose lazily from a chimney in the solid half, and--Raven's heart lurched--a gnarled, gray-haired woman in a frayed dress and shawl stood beside the door, watching them with eyes that somehow didn't look _normal_, although Raven was uncertain what gave her that impression.

Morrigan stepped lightly down the hill, ducking her head to the woman; the others followed cautiously, coming to a halt on the dry path before the cottage. "Greetings, mother," Morrigan said, a note of respect in her tone that Raven hadn't heard before. "I bring before you four Grey Wardens who--"

The old woman cut off her daughter's words with a careless wave of her hand. "I see them, girl." 'Girl' wasn't the word Raven would have used to describe Morrigan; though Raven herself still felt like the untried girl, Morrigan seemed older and more experienced than she, but Raven supposed mothers must see their children differently. "Mmmm. Much as I expected." The woman's voice was rough with age, but strong and deep, with an undercurrent of power that made Raven look more closely at her.

"Are we supposed to believe you were expecting us?" Alistair asked, his tone exasperated. He hadn't liked it when Morrigan had taken control and direction of the group away from him--unsurprising, Raven thought, as he'd been charged with the safety of the recruits.

Morrigan's mother shrugged. "You are required to do nothing, least of all believe. Shut one's eyes tight or open one's arms wide... either way, one's a fool!" She tipped her head back and laughed, making Raven uneasy. The woman reminded Raven a little of two people: the scrying professor back in Kinloch Hold, whose class everyone thought to be useless, and who often spoke as though she didn't know there was anyone else in the room; and one of the apprentices who had gone too far into his studies of the arcane school of magic. He'd woken everyone in the dormitories one night with a scream, and after that spoke only nonsense, fragments of things that sounded like poetry or prophecy but never quite made sense.

Raven hadn't thought about either mage for years. She clenched her hands behind her back, striving to keep her unease from her face or posture.

"She's a witch, I tell you! We shouldn't be talking to her!" Daveth argued again, and Raven resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of _course_ the woman was a witch. How else would she and her apostate daughter live here in the Wilds without being attacked by the darkspawn, or by the other creatures Daveth claimed usually lurked in the forest? Besides that, Raven was certain she heard Morrigan's mother's aura tickling at her mind, even though the woman didn't appear to be using any spells. Even Irving didn't hold such power. The woman's magic was deep, almost inaudible, with a hoarse edge that reminded Raven uneasily of the spirits in her Harrowing, although the woman didn't act like any of the types of abominations Raven had read about.

Still, she _did_ sound strange....

"Quiet, Daveth!" Ser Jory hissed--one of the most sensible things any of them had said since meeting Morrigan. "If she's really a witch, do you want to make her angry?"

Morrigan's mother chuckled. "There is a smart lad. Sadly irrelevant to the larger scheme of things, but it is not I who decides. Think what you will."

Raven frowned. The woman's words _almost_ made sense, in some way Raven couldn't describe. It was as though the woman spoke in a cipher whose key Raven didn't know.

Then she started, as Morrigan's mother turned her disturbing gaze on Raven herself; the woman's eyes all but glowed in the fading light. "And what of you? Does your elvhen mind give you a different viewpoint? What do you think of me?"

Raven knew her ears were hidden by her hair. Still, somehow she wasn't surprised that this woman--this _witch_\--knew what she was. "I'm not sure," she said honestly.

Morrigan's mother smiled, which was almost more unsettling than her laugh. "A statement that possesses more wisdom than it implies. Be always aware...." She cocked her head, sounding as though she were trying to recall something just out of reach. "Or is it oblivious? I can never remember." A shrug. The woman's gaze was searching. "So much about you is uncertain... and yet I believe. Do I? Why, it seems I do!"

The words seemed to settle over Raven, chilling. She hid a shudder. Raven had never put much stock into predictions or prophecies, thinking them to be nothing more than spirits attempting to mislead or control the living... but here before Morrigan's mother, she was almost ready to... _believe_.

The others, however, apparently couldn't feel what Raven could. Alistair's voice sounded almost in her ear, rich with laughter, and she stifled a jump of surprise. "So this is a dreaded Witch of the Wilds?"

She glanced up at him. Could he truly not sense the power this woman held?

"Witch of the Wilds, eh?" Morrigan's mother asked, sounding nearly as amused as Alistair did. "Morrigan must have told you that. She fancies such tales, although she would never admit it. Oh, how she dances under the moon!" The woman laughed again, high and grating, the sound shuddering along Raven's spine.

"They did not come to listen to your wild tales, Mother," Morrigan said, her voice tight.

"True," her mother said, waving a careless hand. "They came for their treaties, yes? And before you begin barking," she said, turning to Alistair, "your precious seal wore off long ago. I have protected these." She withdrew a tight roll of parchment from beneath her shawl--how had she known to have the scrolls with her when they arrived?--and held the documents out to Alistair with a flourish.

Raven glanced up as he reached out a hand to take the treaties. "You--" he began, sounding annoyed, then blinked. "Oh. You protected them?" Surprise, and gratitude. _At least he knows how to be gracious,_ Raven thought.

"And why not?" Morrigan's mother asked, her voice sharp. "Take them to your Grey Wardens and tell them this Blight's threat is greater than they realize!"

_So there _is_ a Blight,_ Raven thought, her stomach clenching. It wasn't as though she'd disbelieved Duncan--although King Cailin obviously had--but this woman's pronouncement felt so... _real_. "Thank you for returning them," she said quietly, watching Alistair unroll the scrolls, nod, and slip them reverently into a scroll case she hadn't noticed hanging from his belt.

The old witch laughed--and this time it sounded normal, no longer cackling eerily. "Such manners!" she said, unconsciously--or perhaps it was _entirely_ consciously--echoing Morrigan's words earlier. "Always in the last place you look. Like stockings!"

At that moment, Raven realized what the woman was doing. Her every word was carefully calculated to put the others at ease, to make them see nothing but a harmless old woman ranting in the forest. After all, none of them were mages. They couldn't sense, couldn't _hear_, what Raven could.

But _why_ did she want only Raven to know what she was?

Morrigan's mother looked directly at Raven and winked, as though Raven had spoken her thoughts aloud, and Raven felt a chill that had nothing to do with her magic. "Oh, do not mind me," the woman said lightly. "You have what you came for!"

"Time for you to go, then," Morrigan said heartily, as though glad to see the back of them.

Her mother, however, tsked loudly. "Do not be ridiculous, girl. These are your guests!"

The two women shared a look, as though locked into a silent battle of wills, which ended with a sigh from Morrigan. "Oh, very well," she muttered. Facing the group, she said tonelessly, "I will show you out of the woods. Follow me."

She took off quickly through the gathering dusk. Raven made to follow, but paused; she had almost forgotten about the houndsmaster's request, but a spot of bright color amidst the browns and greys caught her gaze. The flower she'd been sent to find grew just beside her, its stem protruding from a fallen log at the edge of the pool with the cottage's stilts in it.

Raven bent and plucked the flower, slipping it into her pouch, then hurried to catch up with Morrigan and the others. She resisted glancing back at the hut, not wanting to see what she already knew--that Morrigan's mother watched her leave.

The return trip to Ostagar took far less time than Raven had expected. Morrigan seemed to have found a path that led directly to the gate, with no twists or turns or detours, and Raven could swear that if she stood atop Ostagar's wall and tossed a stone, she would be able to hit Morrigan's mother's house.

Morrigan stopped just out of sight of the soldier at the gate, letting the men walk past her; they seemed eager to get back to someplace they knew, to the safety of the ruins. She gave Raven one last smile, laden with something like promise, then turned and sauntered into the gathering gloom of the forest.

Raven looked back to thank Morrigan for her help, but the woman was already gone... as was the path they'd taken to reach the ruins.

Shaken, Raven followed the others through the gates into the light and warmth of the camp.


	8. Joining

As she made her way through the gate back into the Ostagar camp, Raven nodded to the woman stationed there, whose form was nearly hidden by the wall's shadow, then took a deep breath and stepped reluctantly down the path toward the distant tents, the sounds of soldiers preparing for bed a growing roar in her ears. Duncan was seated beside the Wardens' campfire; she started toward him, then stopped, her fingers brushing the flower in her pouch.

Raven rushed forward, catching up with the group, then reached up and tapped Alistair on the shoulder. He turned to look down at her at once. "Hmmm?"

"There's something I need to take care of quickly," she said. "Can you tell Duncan I'll be there in just a moment?"

Alistair shrugged. "Even better--I'm going to take the others over to the camp kitchen. Fighting darkspawn is hungry work; I'm famished, and you lot probably aren't much better. Want me to get you anything?"

Raven shook her head--she'd eaten her trail food, which had been enough to restore the energy she'd lost in the battles. She never needed much to eat, anyway. "I'm well. But thank you for thinking of me."

He grinned. "Anything for the woman who saved us about a dozen times out there," he said, then walked away, whistling cheerfully as he motioned Daveth and Ser Jory after him.

Raven stared at his retreating back for a moment. _He... thinks I was useful?_ She bit her lip, trying not to smile. _Perhaps I'll be a decent Grey Warden, after all._

Still, despite his words, she didn't wish to keep Duncan waiting for long. She dashed off through the darkening camp, her steps light on the stone and packed earth.

She stopped when she reached the houndsmaster, who crouched before the pen of the dog he'd been worried about earlier, reaching between the wooden bars of the gate. "Excuse me, ser," she said, and he looked up. She held up the flower. "I'm not too late, am I?"

He smiled broadly. "Not at all. Perfect, my lady! That's just what this beast needs!" He stood--picking up a mortar and pestle beside him, which was already half-filled with something dark brown--and plucked the flower from her fingertips, adding it to the mixture. The red-and-white petals released a sharp, spicy fragrance as he crushed them. "Whilst you're here," he said, scooping the medicine from the mortar and forming it into a ball, "could I have one more favor?"

Raven nodded. "I can try," she said.

The man jerked his head toward the kennel. "I'll need someone to hold him still while I give this to him," he said. "He's hurt, and might snap if it's just me--but if someone's there to hold him, it might calm him enough so's I can treat the poor beast."

Raven swallowed hard. These dogs were massive--the injured mabari probably weighed more than she did. "He doesn't know me," she noted uneasily. "Wouldn't it spook him more, to have an unfamiliar person holding him?"

"No, 'course not," the man assured her. "He's smart enough to know you've helped him--and _you're_ not the one giving him something nasty and bitter to eat."

Raven eyed the dog dubiously; he was nearly hidden in the shadows where he huddled, but his gaze _did_ seem oddly kind. "Very well, I'll do it," she said, forcing her reservations out of her voice.

"Perfect," the houndsmaster said, unlatching the gate to the kennel and tugging it open. "Just in here--easy, now." A soft growl sent Raven's pulse racing, but the man spoke soothingly. "I've brought someone to help you," he said. "Quiet down, now."

The sound abated, and the man gestured Raven forward. Timidly, she stepped into the kennel.

The mabari was indeed enormous--were it able to stand, its shoulder would reach her elbow at the least, and she thought she might be able to ride the creature like a horse without it noticing her weight. There was an odd intelligence in its gaze as it looked up at her with watery brown eyes, and she cautiously knelt in the soft hay beside it, slipping her arms about its enormous neck. They didn't quite make it all the way around.

"Good," the houndsmaster said, and Raven looked up to see him crouch before the mabari, holding the ball of medicine. He pressed the ball against the corner of the dog's mouth; it resisted for a time, but finally gave in, opening its mouth wide to display a huge, damp tongue. Raven wrinkled her nose at the smell--like cat breath, but _meatier_. Ugh.

The dog swallowed the medicine, and the man stood up, smiling and wiping his palms on his trousers. "Thanks for the help, Warden, and I'm sure the dog'd thank you himself if he could," he said, and held out a mostly clean hand to help Raven up. She took it gingerly, surreptitiously wiping her own hands on her robe as she straightened. She certainly preferred cats, although there had been something nice in the dog's warm gaze. "We'll know by tonight if he'll make it, and if he does, he'll be up in a day or two at most. There's no more'n two ways with the darkspawn blood--you bounce right back, or you waste away."

"I hope he recovers," Raven said, bowing to the man, and left the kennels--and the smell of dog--behind.

She stopped on the main path and glanced over at Duncan, but the others hadn't yet returned to the fire. As Raven tried to decide what she should do, a vaguely familiar voice met her ears. "What do we have here?"

Raven looked left, toward the mages' camp, where she found a pale, grey-haired, athletic woman in the intricately patterned overrobe of a Senior Enchanter, arms crossed as she looked Raven over. "I'd heard the new Grey Warden recruit was from the Circle." Her voice was stern--as if used to issuing commands--but welcoming, matured by a hint of gravel behind a soft lilt.

The woman's expression softened as she took in Raven's appearance. Raven glanced down at her robes, which had been new a scarce week before, and felt embarrassed by the blood spattered across the green cloth, the hole in the shoulder where she'd been burned, the hem muddied and torn where she'd caught it on plants or dragged it through ponds. "I don't believe we've met," the woman continued, "but I've certainly heard a lot about your talent. My name is Wynne--Senior Enchanter--and I congratulate you on your Harrowing. Marvelous work. The Fade is a dangerous place."

Raven ducked her head modestly. "I found it terrifying, to be honest," she said, still feeling uncomfortable about someone from the Circle being glad to see her. Had this 'Wynne' not heard of the circumstances of Raven's departure from the Tower?

"I thought the same," Wynne said, surprising Raven. "It's good you can admit that." She smiled. "So, a Grey Warden, fighting alongside the king. Not too shabby for someone just out of apprenticeship."

Raven found her reservations beginning to erode beneath the woman's quiet praise, but held her ground. "I hope I don't disappoint anyone."

The Senior Enchanter shook her head. "Ah, child, don't hold yourself in so little esteem. You've been taught well. Use what you know and have faith in yourself." Her voice was stern again, but kind--as if she imparted an important lesson she knew would be difficult to grasp. "Mages have always been pivotal in the fight against the darkspawn. Perhaps you'll be the one to turn the tide this time."

Raven fidgeted. Earlier today she might have heard that as a simple platitude, but after meeting Morrigan's mother, she hardly knew what to believe. _Do all female mages become so mysterious when they grow older?_ she wondered. _Andraste preserve me if it ever happens to me. I'm afraid these ominous proclamations will sound far less impressive coming from someone my size._

She glanced toward Duncan again, but her companions still hadn't returned from the camp kitchen. "Have you faced darkspawn?" she asked, grasping for a way to keep the conversation going and only afterward realizing that was precisely what Alistair had asked her.

"Stragglers, yes--not the vast horde the scouts speak of," Wynne said. "Magic is particularly effective against large groups of the creatures, however. I believe we may both be in demand during the battles to come."

"I've found my spells work best against the basic hurlocks," Raven said. "It's harder to affect the genlocks or the alphas, and the one emissary I faced was particularly difficult. Is darkspawn magic different from our own?"

Wynne furrowed her brow in contemplation. "I haven't had the chance to study their magic," she mused, "but it would make sense for darkspawn magic to be unlike ours. After all, most mages not trained by the Circle tend to have different approaches to magic than those we are taught--the soothsaying of the Rivaini seers, for instance, or the shape-shifting of the Chasind witches, or even the focus on nature of the Dalish Keepers. A few Circle mages study their arts, but it's frowned upon by the Chantry, I'm afraid."

Raven nodded. "I've always been interested in Dalish magic," she said. "And I met a Chasind witch today; she didn't feel much like a Circle mage. I wish I knew more about what they could do." _Maybe then I'd know whether Morrigan's mother was just trying to unsettle me,_ she mused.

"There are some few studies of other magical traditions in the Circle's library, but not many," Wynne agreed. "Perhaps the Wardens have other--"

A shrill whistle cut through the woman's words, and Raven's head whipped up. She caught sight of Alistair and the recruits approaching from the kitchens, and Alistair grinned as he walked toward her. "Time to head to Duncan, I'm afraid," he said. "Have you finished--oh, I'm sorry. Did I interrupt something?"

"We were only speaking of magic while I waited for you," Raven said, ducking her head. She turned back to Wynne. "Thank you for speaking with me," she said. "May we find victory in the battles ahead."

"Maker let it be so," Wynne said in farewell as Raven followed the others back to the Wardens' fire.

Duncan looked up as they approached, his expression grim. _Did he receive disturbing news while we were gone, or is he perhaps still worried about the King?_ "So you return from the Wilds," he said. "Have you been successful?"

Alistair nodded. "We retrieved the treaties," he said first, "but we should probably tell you about Morrigan--there was a woman at the tower, and her mother had the scrolls. They were both very... odd."

Duncan raised an eyebrow. "Were they Wilder folk?"

"I don't think so," Alistair said, his voice troubled. "They may have been apostates, hiding from the Chantry."

A half-smile quirked Duncan's mouth. "I know you were once a Templar, Alistair, but Chantry business is not ours. We have the scrolls; let us focus on the Joining."

"I... yes," Alistair said, pulling the vials of darkspawn blood from his belt pouch and handing them over. All animation had faded from his voice; Raven peered at him, concerned.

Duncan, his lips pressed tight, nodded as he took the stoppered vials. "Good," he said. "Had we time, I would do this after you slept, but as we've a battle to fight on the morrow... I've had the Circle mages preparing. With the blood you've retrieved, we can begin the Joining immediately."

Raven's eyes widened; beside her, Daveth muttered something quiet she couldn't quite make out. Ser Jory began, "But we--" then cut himself off, shifting in his heavy armor.

_So soon?_ Raven thought. _We're exhausted, my mana is still low... what more do they expect of us? Of course, far more was expected of me in the Harrowing than a few simple battles. It makes sense that this Joining would be more complex as well._

Her second thought was _Why are the Circle mages involved?_ But... hadn't she wondered, when Alistair had told them of the Wardens' ability to sense darkspawn, whether there was some manner of rite involved--a magic spell, perhaps? Would she have learned about the Joining had she stayed at Kinloch Hold, or had Duncan needed to tell the mages what to do?

Silence stretched, save for the jangle of Ser Jory's armor and Daveth coughing softly. Not willing to show the same uneasiness, Raven squared her shoulders, smoothed her face, and said, "I am ready."

Alistair glanced over at her as though startled, his expression lacking its usual levity. He looked away almost at once, as though he didn't dare meet her eyes, and an uneasy feeling grew in the pit of Raven's stomach.

"Excellent," Duncan said, approval in his tone. Raven savored the sound, but it was soured by his next words. "You will need that courage to face what comes next."

_You survived the Harrowing,_ Raven told herself sternly, quashing a surge of near-panic. She wasn't going to fall apart now, after all she'd done over the past week. _This Joining will be no different._

"Courage?" Daveth asked, emotions a jumble in his voice: apprehension, unease, a hint of anger. "How much danger are we in?"

Duncan sighed. "I will not lie: we Grey Wardens pay a heavy price to become what we are. Fate may decree that you pay your price now, rather than later." Ser Jory made a soft sound of dismay, a dismay Raven, too, felt.

She swallowed hard, clenching her jaw to stop its trembling, and asked, "Is that why the Joining is so secret?"

"If only such secrecy were unnecessary," Duncan said heavily, "and all understood the necessity of such sacrifice. Sadly, that will never be so."

_If you're _trying_ to make us uneasy, you're doing an excellent job,_ Raven thought. More than anything, Alistair's silence unnerved her. He'd rarely been without some snide quip during their trek through the marsh, but now he stood wordlessly beside Duncan.

A long pause, where no one seemed willing to speak or even move, was finally broken by Daveth. "Let's go, then," he said, and a hint of sarcasm colored his voice as he said, "I'm anxious to see this 'Joining' now."

"I agree," Ser Jory said stoutly, although his hands trembled in the dim firelight. "Let's have it done."

Duncan smiled at last, although there was little cheer in the expression. "Then let us begin. Alistair, take them to the old temple."

Alistair nodded solemnly, then cast one last look at the three recruits before striding off to the north, toward where Raven had first met him. Raven and the others followed, Duncan trailing behind the group... as though to keep any of them from bolting.

_Stop being paranoid,_ Raven ordered herself, her steps sounding loud in her ears as she followed Alistair through the night-darkened camp. _You made your decision days ago. This is the only way for you to proceed. Worrying about it will accomplish nothing._

Even so, she couldn't keep her heart from beating as hard as though she'd been running, and she had to control each breath lest her quickened breathing make her dizzy. She followed Alistair, an odd sense of familiarity to the actions; it was almost like when she'd walked with Irving and the Templars to the Harrowing room. The same clink of armor and thud of booted feet on sloping stone, the same chill air, the same oddly weightless feeling as she walked toward an unknown doom that she might not survive.

_But I survived the Harrowing, and I will survive the Joining. I _will_ become a Grey Warden, and make Duncan proud. I will not allow his trust in me to be misplaced._

Resolute, she stepped into the tower where Alistair had argued with the mage.

It looked much as it had earlier--a single, pillared room at the end of the long hall, circular and tall with wide windows, looming over the tents below and open to the sky above--save one detail: a low wooden table now stood in the center of the tower, an enormous white goblet atop it. The cup was carved from some kind of stone that caught the scant torchlight from around the camp, the moon- and starlight glimmering down from overhead.

The room was empty, surprising Raven; after Duncan had mentioned the mages, she'd expected them to be here. What manner of 'preparation' had they done? Did it have something to do with the goblet?

Alistair and Duncan came to a stop beside the table, ducking their heads in a quick whispered conference and leaving the three recruits standing at the top of the ramp.

On Raven's right, Ser Jory muttered, "The more I hear about this 'Joining', the less I like it." He eyed the table, and the goblet, uneasily.

Daveth scoffed from the left. "Are you blubbering again?" He sounded exasperated, as though he'd chosen to deal with his fear by getting annoyed at everyone else's misgivings.

"Why all these curst tests?" Ser Jory asked, heat in his voice, although he didn't raise it enough for the two by the table to hear. "Have I not earned my place?"

"Maybe it's tradition," Daveth said. "Or maybe they're just trying to annoy _you_." His tone implied that he didn't know why anyone would go to such trouble for Ser Jory.

_This is a _truly_ inappropriate place--and time--to be fighting,_ Raven thought, and held up a hand. "Calm down," she rebuked them. "There's nothing we can do about it now."

Ser Jory's voice shook when he answered. "I only know that my wife is in Redcliffe with a child on the way. If they had warned me...." He bit his lip. "It doesn't seem fair."

Raven bit back a snort; facing something deadly, and the man decided to sound like Jowan. She tried to ignore how her heart ached at the reminder.

"Would you have come if they'd warned you?" Daveth asked, his voice growing serious, as though he'd forgotten to be sarcastic. "Maybe that's why they don't. The Wardens do what they must, right?"

"Including _sacrificing_ us?" Ser Jory asked, his voice a little too loud. Raven flinched as she realized Alistair and Duncan had finished speaking, and were instead watching the recruits. Neither Daveth nor Ser Jory seemed to notice, however.

Daveth shrugged. "I'd sacrifice a lot more if I knew it would end the Blight." There was an unexpected intensity in his tone, and Raven found herself revising her opinion of the man. Perhaps his sarcasm and levity was all a front, like Raven's own façade. The way he hid his true self from those around him. "You saw those darkspawn, Ser Knight. Wouldn't you die to protect your pretty wife from them?"

"I...." Ser Jory said, his voice cracking.

"Maybe you'll die," Daveth said. "Maybe we'll all die. If nobody stops the darkspawn, we'll die for sure."

Ser Jory slumped. "I've just never faced a foe I could not engage with my blade." His words were quiet, tired.

Daveth had, apparently, no response to this. Silence stretched, all three recruits lost in their own thoughts.

Booted footsteps.

"At last we come to the Joining," Duncan said, walking over to the recruits and beckoning them into the temple. He didn't acknowledge the conversation he'd overheard; his words sounded ritual, with a sense of... finality. "The Grey Wardens were founded during the first Blight, when humanity stood on the verge of annihilation."

He returned to the table, gazing down at the white goblet. "So it was that the first Grey Wardens drank of darkspawn blood, and mastered their Taint."

Raven swallowed hard, her mouth gone suddenly dry, hearing the men beside her gasp. It all made sense now--why the recruits had been asked to gather the blood, why the Wardens could sense darkspawn, why only _they_ could stop the Blights.

"There's no more than two ways with the darkspawn blood," the kennelmaster had told Raven. One who ingested the blood would die... or....

Would be _changed_.

She'd heard tales before of those taken by the Blight: ghouls, people who wasted away until they were little more than darkspawn themselves. Did the Circle's help perhaps force a different sort of transformation, one that allowed a person Tainted by the darkspawn to retain her mind but gave her affinity with the darkspawn? It felt uneasily like blood magic to Raven, but... the Grey Wardens had done this for Ages, and she'd heard no tales of any Wardens being possessed by demons. And Duncan said the Circle had aided him. Perhaps... perhaps in this case, she could accept the use of blood.

"We're..." Ser Jory spoke up, his voice high and reedy. He coughed, then spoke again. "We're going to drink the blood of those... those _creatures_?"

Duncan nodded solemnly. "As the first Grey Wardens did before us, as we did before you. _This_ is the source of our power, and our victory. You are called upon to submit yourselves to the Taint for the greater good."

Alistair spoke next, his voice uncharacteristically soft; he looked at each recruit in turn, and Raven shivered as he met her eyes. "Those who survive the Joining become immune to the Taint. We can sense it in the darkspawn, and use it to slay the Archdemon."

"Those who survive?" someone whispered. It might have been Raven.

"Not all who drink the blood survive," Duncan said, "and those who do are forever changed. This is why the Joining is a secret. It is the price we pay." He closed his eyes. "We speak only a few words prior to the Joining, but these words have been said since the first. Alistair, if you would?"

Alistair drew himself up, taking a deep breath, and when he began to speak his words held the weight of an oath. "Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand, vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn."

He glanced at Raven, then looked past her, toward the table and the cup it bore. "And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten, and that one day we shall join you."

The ancient temple fell silent, and Raven breathed out, long and trembling. She felt as though she had been changed already, that the Joining had begun its work the moment she stepped into this tower.

A soft _chink_ sounded, and Raven turned her head--feeling sluggish yet oddly sharp, as when she moved through the Fade--to see Duncan lift the cup from the table. "Daveth, step forward," he said.

The former thief did so, his own movements looking dreamlike, as though he and Raven were caught in the same spell. He took the cup from Duncan's hands, lifting it to his mouth, and drank.

Raven found herself holding her breath.

Duncan retrieved the cup, stepping back. "From this moment forth, you are a Grey Warden."

Daveth inhaled deeply, his chest rising with the motion.

Then he choked.

His hands flew to his throat, his body spasming as though he were about to vomit. His eyes squeezed shut, a bead of sweat trickling down his face, and he doubled over in pain. He cried out, and when his eyes flew open again, Raven took a step back in shock.

They had gone white, pure white, as though he had been blinded by some great and terrible magic. Gasping for air, he stumbled forward, toward the table.

"Maker's breath!" Ser Jory cried out, horror in his words.

Daveth's knees gave out, and he collapsed to the cold stone floor of the ancient temple, his body shuddering with one final gasp.

Then he fell still, and silent.

Raven also shuddered, unable to stop it. She had seen many things in her life she wished she hadn't seen. The life of a mage was not an easy one; over the years, more than a dozen of Raven's classmates had run afoul of a spell, or a spirit, that they couldn't handle. She'd watched the Templars remove the twisted body of a young woman from her dormitory, a girl who had been studying the nature of the Fade and had run across some area that wasn't meant to be visited by mortals. She'd heard the screams as a young man in her Primal Magic class cast a spell of lightning too powerful for him to control, had listened to the whimpers of a girl beside her in the infirmary who had been mauled by a spirit summoned without the proper safeguards.

But she had never before seen something like this--a man, dedicated to protecting Thedas, succumbing to the poison he'd hoped would allow him to save others. She felt tears gathering in her eyes, but couldn't bring herself to move, to wipe them away.

"I am sorry, Warden Daveth," Duncan whispered, looking sorrowfully down at the corpse of a man Raven had spoken with, healed, fought alongside just this day.

Then he turned.

"Step forward, Jory."

Ser Jory did no such thing. He stumbled back, away from what had once been Daveth, his eyes wide. One hand reached blindly toward the hilt of his sword. "But... I have a wife. A child! Had I known...."

Duncan shook his head, looking... _old_. _How many has he watched fall in the Joining?_ Raven wondered, a hysterical edge to her thoughts. "There is no turning back," he said, his voice soft.

"No!" Ser Jory said, a throaty shout, almost a sob. "You ask too much! There is no glory in this!"

_Were you here for glory, Ser Jory?_ Raven thought, still shivering. _If so, then you came to the wrong people. The Wardens do not seek glory. We are here so that others will not have to endure what we do._

Ser Jory drew his blade, and--under Raven and Alistair's shocked gazes--swung at Duncan.

The Warden stepped into Ser Jory's reach. Still holding the goblet, he drew a long dagger with the gleam of silverite, swinging low toward Ser Jory's wrist and redirecting the sword so the blow flew wide.

In the same motion, he ran Ser Jory through.

"I am sorry," he whispered, blood streaming down his blade, pooling on the ground below him.

The dagger _had_ to be silverite. Nothing else could have pierced Ser Jory's cuirass, taking him in the heart in a single, swift blow. Duncan withdrew the blade, wiping it almost absently on the bloodspattered leg of his trousers.

Ser Jory's eyes were wide as he crumpled to the ground, his blood staining the ancient white stone of the temple.

Duncan bowed his head to the corpse, then turned to Raven.

"Step forward, Raven," he said, his voice hoarse as though he held back tears.

She swallowed hard, feeling tears streaming down her own cheeks. Yet she had made her decision, long since. She would be dead without Duncan. If Fate--or whoever was in charge of such things--willed it, then she would die here instead.

And if she didn't....

She smoothed her face, surreptitiously wiping her palms on her robes, and took the cup from Duncan.

It was surprisingly light in her grip. She had expected something far heavier, as heavy as the burden it would place upon the Wardens it created. The liquid within almost seemed to glow, black in the dim starlight; tiny ripples marred its surface as Raven trembled, bringing the goblet to her lips. Her mind filled with a sweet song, achingly familiar, although she knew she had never before heard its like.

Raven drank.

Unlike when she'd gathered it, the blood was warm, and it burned her lips as it passed between them. She resisted the urge to cough, to gag and spit it out, and its heat filled her as she swallowed. She could scarcely feel the warmth of Duncan's fingers as he took the cup from her grasp, stepping back.

As though from far away, she heard the same words he had spoken to Daveth. "From this moment forth, you are a Grey Warden."

Fire raced through her veins, a sharp crescendo of pain. She gasped, one hand clutching at her throat, but though her breathing was ragged, it did not cut off as Daveth's had. She felt _alive_, as though she had walked through her life until now half-asleep, and had only just awoken.

Perhaps it was irony, then, that her vision darkened, and she felt herself begin to crumple as unconsciousness claimed her.

###### 

Dark clouds boiled overhead, angry, lit with a sickly green light. A dragon reared above her, its scales a red so dark as to be nearly black. It was a corrupted, rotten creature; its wings were filmy things the color of a bruise, and spikes jutted from its skull, its back, its limbs. It roared, showing sharp yellowed fangs, and turned its face to regard her with one milky eye, the same as Daveth's had been when he died.

It saw her, knew her, _hated_ her....


End file.
